34 nirma newsletter jan-june 2020 - nirmauni.ac.in

Quarterly Newsletter

Volume 12 • Issue 1 & 2

January - June 2020NewsletterNirma University

Major

Highlights

of this Issue

Nirma University is

awarded a 4-star

status in Gujarat State

Institutional Rating

Framework (GSIRF)

2020 by Knowledge

Consortium of

Gujarat.

Institute of Technology received

accreditation from National Board of

Accreditation (NBA) for all its

undergraduate programmes.

Inauguration of the Centre of

Excellence in Data Science at

Institute of Technology.

Innovative initiatives

at the university…

Academic continuity during the

times of COVID-19

thInstitute of Pharmacy is ranked 17

among the Pharmacy Institutions of

India as per the National Institutional

Ranking Framework (NIRF) in 2020 by

the Ministry of HRD, Government of

India.

Nirma University

signs MoU with

Robert Bosch

Engineering and

Business Solution

Pvt Ltd (RBEI),

Bangalore.

Volume 12 • Issue 1 & 2 • January - June 2020

04

07

14

15

16

17

20

05

Message from the Director General's Desk

Students

Internships

Placements

Innovative Initiatives

Visitors

Education and Research


News

181818

Contents

050505MoU

212121Study-In-Gujarat Campaign

International Day of Yoga

21 Events & Activities

Extension Activities 41

46 Faculty

47 Alumni

45 In Focus

353535Alumni Meets

505050

creating despair and dismay for the

youth. Governments across India have

stopped recruiting, while the private

sector corporations have adopted a wait

and watch tactic. Consequently, many

students will either become unemployed

or will be forced to elongate their

studies.

Peter Drucker – the foremost

management thinker - is attributed to

have said that the modern university is a

relic and will disappear soon. His

prediction did not prove true for many

decades. Nevertheless, the modern

university is poised to get its new Avtar.

Higher education has been affected by

the corona pandemic in three ways.

Firstly, higher education professionals

have realised the inevitability of online

education. Previously, classroom learning

and online learning were like water and

oil, and they hardly mixed. Online

learning has now been found a valuable

tool that is going to stay in higher

education forever. On-campus teaching

and online teaching are meeting and

merging like never before. Of course,

many efforts are required to make this

conflating more effective. Better

communication and information

technologies are needed; teachers need

to be trained to optimise the online

teaching-learning process; students have

to be more efficient self-learners; and,

governments are required to change the

regulations to facilitate higher education

institutions (HEIs) in enhancing their

impact.

Secondly, the HEIs have to develop

innovative strategies to distribute

students into small groups (say 30 and

below) and engage them in various

academic processes. Thus, we are

heading towards a paradoxical situation.

While students will attend online lectures

in large groups (say 100 to 500), they

would also do other academic activities

(tutorials, lab work, simulation, career

Dear Reader,

A pandemic like COVID-19 occurs only

once in several centuries. Unfortunately,

when it happens, it disrupts the human

life drastically. It stuns and stupefies

people at large and leaves them helpless

and hopeless. In addition, it changes

economic, social, political, and

developmental paradigms prevalent in

the different parts of the world. Today

the humanity is caught unaware and

scrambling for finding effective survival

and growth strategies. What are the

answers to long-term challenges posed

by this pandemic?

The future of the human race depends

largely on high quality education and

health. Education is the spirit of the

mind, whereas health provides the elixir

to the body. In the past, these two

sectors have received scant attention

from the governments of the world. One

surprising positive aspect of the current

crisis is that the governments would be

forced to rethink their approach to

reinventing and revitalising education

and health.

Higher education – like several economic

and social activities – has suffered

severely from COVID-19. Teaching and

examination activities have been

hampered. There is no telling when

regular academic activities will ensue.

Admission processes are delayed. Most

unfortunately, placements of students

have either slowed down or revoked,

development, etc) in numerous small

groups. It implies that the HEIs have to

invest massively in equipment, facilities

and production of digital learning

materials. In the future, learning would

not be counted in terms of class credits –

the clock hours that students spend in

the classroom – but in terms of learning

credits – the hours the students engage

in learning units. It has several

imperatives for the teaching-learning

methods. Several new methods have to

be evolved and experimented. New

realities command new responses.

Thirdly, examinations and assessments

have to be redefined and be treated as

learning. There will be a greater need for

more assessments, so that learning is

assured. At the same time, it cannot be –

and should not be - a source of stress. It

has to be as natural and smooth as

learning. Technologies will help

academics in fast and seamless

implementation of assessment. The moot

point is that students should be given

feedback about at each and every step of

their learning process.

As the HEIs are currently undergoing

unpredictable, unforeseeable

transformations, we are limited in our

ability to visualise the future of higher

education. Nevertheless, we can safely

state that the old paradigm of higher

education cannot sustain itself. A new

paradigm will emerge – slowly and

steadily. Sensemaking and agility will

assist academics in developing the new

paradigm of higher education. It also

implicates that various HEIs must

collaborate together and design new

teaching methods, redefine and rework

assessment techniques, and plan and

develop new modes of learning. Long

back, Lord Buddha presciently observed:

Only change is permanent.

Anup K Singh, PhD

Director General, Nirma University

Nirma University | Newsletter04

Message from the Director General's Desk

News

Rankings

NIRF 2020

Institute of Pharmacy, Nirma University is thranked 17 among the Pharmacy

Institutions of India as per the National

Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF)

in 2020 by the Ministry of HRD,

Government of India.

Institute of Management, Nirma thUniversity has been ranked 44 overall

Best B-School by the National

Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF)

in 2020 by the Ministry of HRD,

Government of India.

GSIRF 2020

Nirma University is awarded a 4-star

status with an overall CGPA of 3.91 in

Gujarat State Institutional Rating

Framework (GSIRF) 2020 by Knowledge

Consortium of Gujarat. Thus, making the

university the best private university in

Gujarat. Nirma University is the only

university to receive a 5-star rating in

three out of the four evaluation

parameters.

GSIRF also awarded Institute of

Pharmacy, Nirma University, with a 5-star

status and an overall CGPA of 4.51

making it the best Pharmacy institute in

Gujarat. The institute received 5-star in

all the four evaluation parameters.

SCIMAGO Institutions Rankings 2020

Nirma University has received an Overall

India Rank of 52 and Global Rank of 756

in the category of Higher Education. The

SCIMAGO Institutions Rankings is a

science evaluation resource to assess

worldwide universities and research-

focused institutions. Academic and

research related institutions are ranked

by a composite indicator that combines

indicators based on research

performance, innovation outputs, and

societal impact.

Nirma University | Newsletter 05

MoUs

MoU with Robert Bosch Engineering and Business

Solution Pvt Ltd.

Institute of Technology, Nirma University signed an MoU with Robert Bosch Engineering

and Business Solution Pvt Ltd (RBEI), Bangalore on Jan 30, 2020. The MoU involves the

exchange of technical knowledge in new age technology, strategy and innovations

leading to solving real-life problems.

Dr Alka Mahajan, Director, Institute of Technology, and Dr R N Patel, Additional Director,

School of Engineering, Institute of Technology signed the MoU on behalf of the Nirma

University. Mr Mohan BV, Manager, Strategy & Innovation, and Mr Rohit Bhardwaj,

Manager, New Age Business were the signatory authorities from RBEI.

Collaborative activities like joint research projects, organising workshops, expert lectures,

faculty development programmes, laboratory development, consultancy in focused

areas, academic interaction for qualification improvements of Robert Bosch Associates,

etc will be initiated soon as part of this understanding.

Reaching Out

Nirma University employees contribute to Gujarat Chief Minster Relief Fund

Amid Coronavirus outbreak, Nirma University has pledged to contribute one-day salary

of all its employees towards the Chief Minister Relief Fund. It is a small gesture from the

employees and the University to support the government in its relief activities during

COVID-19 pandemic.

Awards

NBA Accreditation

Institute of Technology, Nirma University

got accreditation from National Board of

Accreditation (NBA) for its

undergraduate programmes in Electrical

Engineering, Civil Engineering and

Instrumentation & Control Engineering.

These programmes are accredited for

three years under the Tier-I (Washington

Accord) category. Earlier the institute had

received accreditation for its

undergraduate programmes in Computer

Science & Engineering, Mechanical

Engineering, Electronics &

Communications Engineering and

Chemical Engineering.

The purpose of the accreditation by the

NBA is to promote and recognise

excellence in technical education in

colleges and universities. It is important

to note that Nirma University is the only

private university in Gujarat to receive

accreditation in Tier – I category.

Likewise, Institute of Pharmacy, Nirma

University also received the NBA

accreditation for its BPharm Programme

for a period of three years.

Visit of NBA Expert Teams

The departments of Electrical

Engineering, Civil Engineering, and

Instrumentation & Control Engineering

of Institute of Technology underwent the

National Board of Accreditation (NBA)

accreditation process under the Tier-I

(Washington Accord) category during

Jan 31-Feb 2, 2020. In purview of the

same, teams of experts visited

laboratories and class rooms of the three

departments. Experts also had an

interaction with stakeholders including,

faculty members, staff members,

students, alumni members, recruiters and

parents.

Inauguration of Centre of Excellence in Data

Science

Shri K K Patel, Vice President, Nirma University and Dr Harvey Stenger, President,

Binghamton University, USA inaugurated the Centre of Excellence in Data Science on Jan

27, 2020 established at the Institute of Technology, Nirma University. The Centre will

cater to the research and development need in the multidisciplinary area of Data Science

by collaborating the academia with industries.

IGLUS Centre of Excellence: A Smart City Lab

Institute of Architecture and Planning, Nirma University; University of Lausanne,

Switzerland; and Gift City, Government of Gujarat has set up a Centre of Excellence in the

field of sustainable cities in GIFT city, Gandhinagar. Mr Tapan Ray, MD and Group CEO of

GIFT City; Prof Finger Matthias, Swiss Post Chair at EPFL; and Dr Utpal Sharma, Director,

Institute of Architecture and Planning, Nirma University; signed a memorandum of

understanding to initiate the process for incubating IGLUS Centre of Excellence (ICE) at

GIFT City on Jan 27, 2020.

The centre will act as a platform for exchange of knowledge and global best practices

about smart city initiatives around the world. The centre will connect experts from its

global network, provide Smart City consultancy services and organise joint conferences

and workshops and regional trainings on smart city topics.


Students

Achievements

Maker Fest 2020

The team of Chemical Engineering

students, Shrajesh Patel, Ruchit Patel and

Deep Kotak, guided by Dr Sanjay Patel

won the Golden Award at Maker Fest

2020 for their Idea Lab project

"Biodegradable plastic from agricultural

waste" during Jan 18-19, 2020. The

project is aimed at using the agricultural

waste such as wheat straw, wheat husk

and rice husk to synthesise

biodegradable plastic.

Maker Fest Vadodara is a National

exhibition of varied disciplines such as

technology, agriculture, food technology,

artisans, health, renewable energy and

plastic replacement options. It is

organised by Yuvalay Electronics lab. This

time about 47 projects were shortlisted

and given their individual stalls to

showcase their prototypes and give

hands-on experience to the visitors,

including entrepreneurs, teams from IOC

and ONGC, among others.

At the end of the two-day exhibition the

project was felicitated with Golden

Award which included a sum of Rs

10,000/-, a trophy and individual

certificates for team members.

ROBOFEST Stage II

A 'Four Legged Robot' prepared by a team of 5 students, Harshvardhan S Sisodiya,

Akshay Marwaniya, Prasham Patel, Akash Surve, and Navin Khatri from Mechanical and

IC; and a 'Chess Playing Robot' prepared by a team of 5 students, Vaibhav Thakur, Krish

Ajmera, Naman Kothari, Nikhil Patel, and Tarun Khilani from Mechanical and EC, Institute

of Technology, Nirma University have cleared the stage II of ROBOFEST competition

organised by GUJCOST Gujarat and won the amount of Rs 2 lakh each for the

preparation of final prototype to demonstrate at Stage III of competition. The students

are mentored by Dr Mihir Chauhan, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering

Department, Institute of Technology.


Other Achievements

• Devashish Trivedi, a fifth year student

of Institute of Law secured an thadjudicator break at the 40 World

Universities Debate Championship

(WUDC), 2020 at Bangkok, Thailand

held from Dec 27, 2019 to Jan 3,

2020. WUDC is known as the Mecca

of Parliamentary Debating and the

competition saw the participation of

more than 700 candidates from over

100 countries. The Institute of Law

becomes one of the six institutes

from India to have secured a break at

WUDC.

• Aadesh Shinde, a third year student

of Institute of Law bagged the title of

"Best Delegate Award" at Sansad, the

National Youth Parliament, held at

Jawahar Bhavan, New Delhi during

Jan 18-19, 2020 on the theme

“Curbing fake news through

legislative measures while ensuring

freedom of speech and role of

judiciary”. He was applauded by the

Executive Board members for his

substantive speeches, lobbying skills

and solution-oriented approach. The

competition witnessed participation

of 65 students across the country.


Nirma University bags the Top Three positions at the

Storm Challenge

The pre-final year students of Chemical Engineering bagged the top three positions at

the national-level Industrial Problem Solving competition ‘The Storm Challenge’. The

competition was organised by Thermax Global Pvt Ltd, a pioneering engineering

company involved in the energy and environment sectors.

The challenge was a real-life industrial problem found in one of Thermax’s

manufacturing units. The participants were required to apply concepts related to fluid

mechanics, plant design, thermodynamics, plant utilities and economics to solve the

problem and subsequently provide suggestions to optimise the plant. The selected

teams presented their solution via a video conference to the expert panel of Thermax

Ltd where all the three teams from the university were declared the winners of the

competition. The winning teams were called to present their case solutions to Thermax

delegates at their headquarters in Pune.

The winning team won a cash prize of INR 50,000. The second and the third positions

won INR 30,000 and INR 20,000 respectively. The experience of solving an industrial

problem by using concepts learnt in theory classes gave the students conceptual clarity,

a chance to hone their problem-solving skills and confidence over complex engineering

concepts.

SAE India Southern Section Aero Design Challenge 2020

Team Arrow (Dhruv Patel, Prem Rajpara, Yash Patil, Vivek Pragda, Mohit Somani, Vedant

Soni, and Jayraj Gohel) of Institute of Technology, Nirma University secured third

position in ‘Overall Performance Award’ with cash prize of Rs 25,000/- and also bagged rd3 position in ‘Best Design Report Award’ at the SAE India Southern Section Aero Design

Challenge 2020 in Micro Class category organised during Feb 28 to March 1, 2020 at

Bannari Amman Institute of Technology, Tamil Nadu.

A total of 62 teams from colleges

across the nation including NIT

Agartala, NIT Patna, NIT Pune, NIT

Mysore, IIT Kanchipuram, BITS, VIT

Pune, SRM University, Bannari

Amman Institute of Technology along

with Institute of Technology, Nirma

University competed for the Micro

Class Category.

Other Achievements

• Aadesh Shinde, of Institute of Law

won "The Times of India Torrent

Power Public Speaking Contest" held

at Ahmedabad Management

Association (AMA) on Feb 26, 2020.

He was appreciated for display of

great confidence, content and voice

modulation.

• Preet Pandit, an undergraduate

student (Sem VI EE), Institute of

Technology is felicitated with SAE

India ‘Student of the Year Award’ by

SAE India Foundation on Feb 10,

2020.

• The team comprising Shalini Mishra,

Vanshika Agrawal, Shrishti Mishra,

Ashuthosh V and Palak Jain from

Institute of Law won the citation for

the second best memorial at Philip C

Jessup International Law Moot Court

Competition, 2020. The Indian

rounds of the competition were held

at Amity Law School, Noida from Jan

30-Feb 2, 2020.

International Scholarship Awards won by ISA Student

Members

Six students of Instrumentation & Control Engineering Department, Institute of

Technology secured scholarships totaling worth USD 8500, from the International

Society of Automation (ISA), USA in the month of June 2020. The scholarship given as

recognition of the outstanding potential, for the contributions in the field as an ISA

member will support the educational expenses of the students.

Ms Somya Gupta (2000 USD), Ms Shailly Maheshwari (2000 USD) and Mr Prashant

Somaiya (2000 USD) have won the ISA Education Foundation Scholarships. In addition to

these, Mr Rishi Hiran (1300 USD), Mr Rutvik Desai (700 USD) and Mr Shrey Shah (500

USD) have won the scholarships from PMCD Division of ISA.


• A short film titled ‘Watch Out - A

Silent Film’ on the theme “Road

Safety” by the Foundation year

students, Srujal Tawade, Hemang

Parekh, and Muhil of Department of rdDesign won 3 prize at the Uyir Short

Film Competition on Feb 5, 2020.

Uyir, an NGO with the mission of

making Coimbatore an accident free

Society organised the 'Uyir Short

Film Contest' wherein a total of 124

short films were received under this

contest across India.


• The team comprising Paridhi Rastogi, Akshita Totla and Aashna Shah of Institute of thLaw won the citation for Best Memorial in the 18 Surana and Surana Corporate Law

National Moot Court Competition, 2020 held from Feb 7-9, 2020. The team was also

adjudged as semi-finalists in the competition.

• The team comprising Shivanshi Gupta, Paridhi Galundia and Manali Maheshwari of

Institute of Law won the citation for best memorial and were also adjudged as semi-thfinalists at Kerala Law Academy’s 29 All India Moot Court Competition held from

Feb 7-9, 2020. In addition to this, Shivanshi Gupta was awarded with the citation of

the Best Student Advocate and Paridhi Galundia was awarded with the citation of the

Second Best Student Advocate.

• The team comprising Varada Jhagirdar, Sanjhi Agarwal and Priyanka Bajpai of thInstitute of Law won the citation for "Best Memorial" at 5 Prof N R Madhava Menon

SAARC Law Mooting competition, 2019-2020. The international rounds of the

competition were held at Llyod Law College, Delhi from Feb 21-23, 2020. In addition

to this, the team was adjudged as quarter-finalists and Varada Jhagirdar was

awarded as "Best Female Advocate" at the competition.

• Arnav Singh and Abhinav Dhar from Institute of Management emerged as the thwinners of the Regional Round of 16 Edition of Tata Crucible Campus Quiz 2020

conducted by Institute of Management on Feb 15, 2020. A total of 104 teams (208

participants) participated in which 51 teams were from Nirma University and 53

teams from outside Nirma University. Arnav Singh and Abhinav Dhar were the

defending champion for this year’s Quiz contest. They were presented with a cheque

of Rs 75,000/- for their achievement.

• Jitendra Singh, MPharm semester II

student secured third position in 800

meter running athletic event. The

team of Nirma University also

secured second position in Kho-Kho

event at Petrocup 2020 organised at

PDPU, Ahmedabad during Feb 14-15,

2020.

• Jitendra Singh, MPharm semester II

student received first prize in oral

presentation for his start-up idea

entitled “Oral vita spray development

for vitamin B12” in a State Level

Competition Pitch 2020 organised at

Airhant School of Pharmacy and Bio-

research during Feb 4-5, 2020.

• Vishvajeet Rao, Angel Ratnani, and

Vedanshi Shah, students of

Semester-IV of Institute of ndTechnology secured 2 runner up

position at the "UltraTech Sparkling

Star competition" for undergraduate

students of Civil Engineering branch

at L D College of Engineering,

Ahmedabad on March 6, 2020.


• The team comprising Sakshi Rathore, Agrima Shankar, Ankur Mishra, Anshika rdPandey, and Ritika Singh of Institute of Law have been adjudged as 3 Best Team in

ththe National Rounds of the 24 Stetson's International Environmental Moot Court

Competition held during Feb 14-16, 2020 in Jindal Global Law School, Sonipat. The

Institute has qualified for the third time in a row for the world rounds.

• Vedant Jajodia and Raju Gupta of Institute of Management won the “Chase to Lead”

event organised as a part of the Adhikosh-20 held at National Institute of Bank

Management, Pune during Feb 29 to March 1, 2020. They cleared the initial online

round and were shortlisted among the 7 teams out of 1600 participating teams for

the campus round.

• Nikunj Sharma and Darshan Makwana, from Mechanical Engineering, Institute of

Technology won second prize at QUIZO-2020 organised by ASHRAE WIC (The

American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers -

Western India Chapter) on March 7, 2020.


• Shubham Bohra, a fourth year

student of Institute of Law teamed

with Sagar Jaikumar from GLC,

Mumbai was adjudged as Grand

Finalists in the British Parliamentary

Debating Tournament organised by

Ullens Debate Club Nepal in

association with the Debate Network

Nepal. The tournament conducted

during May 3-4, 2020 witnessed

participation from nine Asian

countries.

• Parmar Sweety, PhD student working

under the guidance of Dr Vijay

Kothari, Assistant Professor, Institute

of Science is selected in the Scheme

of Developing High quality Research

(SHoDH) of Government of Gujarat,

June 9, 2020.

• Ms Rupal Chabhadia, BPharm

semester VII student of Institute of

Pharmacy participated in

International Conference on Basic

and Translation Cancer Research

(ICBTRC-2020), organised by the

Association of Cancer Education and

Research (ACER), School of Life

Sciences, B S Abdur Rahman

Crescent Institute of Science and

Technology, Chennai, in association

with W M Keck Centre for Cellular

Imaging, University of Virginia, USA,

and Tamil Nadu State Council for

Science & Technology (TNSCST) held

during June 25-27, 2020. Her poster

entitled “Autophagy in Cancer:

Swings and Roundabouts” was

selected as the best e-poster in

undergraduate category.

• Devashish Trivedi (fifth year, Institute

of Law) along with Apratim

Shirvastava, Delhi Technological

University were adjudged as grand

finalists in in NSU Eranos, hosted by

North South University, Bangladesh.

The debating event held during June

19-20, 2020 witnessed participation

of about 60 teams.

• Subham Krishna Borah (fourth year)

and Aarush Sharma (first year) of

Institute of Law were adjudged as rdgrand finalists in the 3 Hong Kong

Pro-Am Debate Championship 2020,

held during June 20-21, 2020. The

competition witnessed participation

from major south-east Asian

countries and is hosted by Hong

Kong University, and Chinese

University of Hong Kong.

• Mr Chetan Dhal, PhD scholar, Institute of Pharmacy won first prize from West zone in

the Dissolution Research Presentation India 2020 (DRPI 2020) organised online by

the Society of Pharmaceutical Dissolution Science (SPDS) in the month of June 2020.

Student Experience

Life Beyond Campus

The students experienced a sudden vacuum due to the transition from 'a lot of things to do' to 'nothing to do' in the initial phase of the

lockdown during March to May 2020. As shared by the students of Institute of Science, some excerpts:

Naisargee Patel, PhD student said, “This is the quality time to catch up with pending reading, and exploring things planned for some

time later, like physical fitness in daily routine by meditation, pranayama, aromatherapy etc. I had never learnt cooking until I realised

that it is not a hobby, nor a gender specific activity. It is a life-sustenance basic that is equally important to learn as is to earn money or

making a career.”

The MSc students in addition to attending online classes and thesis writing, are utilising time for the NET exam preparations. Many of

them have enrolled for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) as per their interest.

Farhan Daila, a semester IV MSc Biotechnology student is using this lockdown as an opportunity to apply his knowledge and research

skills to combat the problems of COVID-19. In his words, “I am studying on various natural molecules which can be used as a

therapeuticals or drugs for COVID-19. Recently I have studied on one chemical compound of garlic which is called Allicin which can be

used as an inhibitor for the most important protein of COVID-19. Now, I am studying on phenolic compounds of olive oil, as many

people, especially the elderly suggest to use it in medication. So I am looking the effect of it on COVID-19.”


Dr Mayurkumar Makhesana

Assistant Professor

Mechanical Engineering Department,

Institute of Technology

Nirma University

Sustainable Machining

through Minimum

Quantity Lubrication and

Solid Lubricants

Sustainability has attained a lot of

importance in today’s manufacturing

industries which extend efforts towards

the optimum use of resources without

compromising the quality and

productivity. Machining is viewed as an

important manufacturing process that

can produce precise dimensions and

desired finish on a workpiece.

The question “how to develop cost-

effective, safe and eco-friendly

machining process?” was addressed

through the development of a novel and

eco-friendly lubrication strategy, such as

application of solid lubricant assisted

minimum quantity lubrication in machining. Further, it has also led to an economical

machining process by reducing consumption of the lubricant. The focus of the research

work was also to motivate the metal cutting industries to develop clean, green and

sustainable manufacturing processes.

It is challenging to control the amount of heat generated during machining since the

application of conventional cutting fluid is hazardous for the operator’s health as well as

for the environment. Moreover, the government regulation regarding the disposal of

these fluids, environmental protection, and the need for development of low cost, clean

and green processes leads the manufacturing industry to take initiative towards the

development of sustainable manufacturing processes.

Dr Makhesana, took this challenge in his doctoral work entitled “Performance

Assessment of Solid Lubricants and Minimum Quantity Lubrication in Machining”. The

innovative lubricant delivery system, namely minimum quantity solid lubrication, was

designed to investigate the effect of machining parameters on machinability

characteristics. Moreover, the effect of solid lubricant combined with MQL was assessed

and results were compared with different machining environments. From the

experimental findings, it was observed that the machining performance is enhanced

with the application of solid lubricant and minimum quantity lubrication. The results

revealed the encouraging potential of solid lubricant added with minimum quantity

lubrication by improving machining performance, and enlighten the possibility of

replacing the conventional flood cooling.

Education and Research

Faculty


At Institute of Architecture and Planning,

Internship for students is the most

indispensable part of the course as the

discipline directly deals with the industry.

Students who have not been able to

complete 18 weeks of mandated

practical training have been given the

assignment based on research.

Summer Training/Industrial Internships 2020 at Institute

of Technology

At the Institute of Technology, the students of BTech and MTech undertake Summer

Training/Industrial Internships of 4-6 weeks duration with a view of putting into practical

use the classroom teaching and gaining a flavour of industrial work culture or research

institutions. However, this year, due to the unprecedented situation arising due to the

COVID-19 pandemic, the industry as well as R&D institutions are dealing with a new

work situation. Also considering the safety aspects associated with travel to workplace

and the need for social distancing, the summer training/industrial internship this year

needs to evolve in its implementation as practically possible.

The students in this situation are considering a work-from-home approach and take an

internship involving industrial case study, problem solving, project assigned by the

industrial or external mentor. The case study, problem solving, project can typically

involve design and development of systems/sub-systems, software/code development,

optimisation and system analysis, etc. The student can also associate with a department

faculty as an internal mentor for the internship and through periodic meetings using

online platform interact periodically for progress reviews and related discussions. At the

end of the duration, the student shall be submitting a written report summarising the

work carried out and making a formal presentation.

Summer Internships 2020 turned into Work-From-Home

Assignment

In view of the unprecedented situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses and

industry, all around, are trying to grapple with the major disruption in their routines

brought about by lockdown, restricted travel and the social distancing norms.

At Institute of Management, this disruption happened at a very crucial time, just when

the students were about to begin their summer internships. Given the criticality of the

summer internships in the academic curriculum of the MBA programme, an appeal was

sent to the recruiters to consider a Work-from-Home option for the students and not

revoke the offer as it could adversely affect the academic prospects of the students. For

MBA students it was proposed that all eight weeks of summer internships would be in a

Work-From-Home mode whereas for the four months internship of I-MBA students, a

hybrid model was suggested. It consisted of four to eight weeks in Work-From-Home

option starting May onward, followed by twelve or eight weeks onsite internship based

on the prevailing situation. Recruiters were sensitive to understand the situation and

appreciate the concerns. About 60% of the batch was assigned the summer internship

via Work-From-Home option. In specific cases where organisations were unable to offer

Work-From-Home option, the Institute identified relevant project topics which were

allocated to the students in their area of specialisation.

Internships


Institute of Management

The campus placement drive at Institute

of Management witnessed offers from

prominent companies, from sectors such

as - Consulting, Automobile, IT&ITES,

Social Media, BFSI, FMCG, Market

Research, Manufacturing, Construction &

Real Estate, Healthcare, Ecommerce,

Analytics, Micro Finance, Power,

Consumer Durable, and Telecom.

Companies such as Smart Cube,

Bytedance (Tik Tok), Phone Pe, and

Deutsche Bank hired from the campus

for the first time. Pantaloons, CRISIL, EXL

Services, Decent Appliances,

Spacematrix, Mercados, Symtten, HDFC

Bank offered PPOs. Infosys, J P Morgan,

EXL Service, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis

Bank, Neilsen, CARE, CRISIL, TCS, HDFC

Life, Performics Convonix, and

Heidelberg Cement have been visiting

the campus regularly. A total of 261

students have been placed until now

with 80 plus companies.

Institute of Pharmacy

Placements for the batch passing in June 2020 at Institute of Pharmacy was scheduled

during March to May. Many reputed companies like Novartis, Torrent Pharma, INTAS

Pharma, APCER, MOLKEM, FINECURE Pharma, Aegis life sciences etc have offered jobs to

students. A total of 20 students have been placed from MPharm before the lockdown

was declared in March. Selection process at more than 10 reputed companies is also

under discussion. Few companies like Sun Pharma, Amneal Pharma, Sundyota

Numandis, CBCC Global have conducted online or telephonic interviews of students and

shortlisted them for further selection process. The students are counselled and oriented

for the specific opportunities by faculties and placement cell for increased chances of

selection. The students are constantly advised to keep themselves productively engaged

and better skilled to take on the opportunities which will be encountered in the post

lockdown scenario.

Institute of Commerce

A total of 22 students of the graduating batch of Institute of Commerce have been

placed in companies including, KPMG, Nielsen, Go Digit, HR Johnson, Toppr

Technologies, S&P Global, Federal Bank, and TresVista.

Placements


presentation by students, Viva voce, etc.

Motivational messages as well as

preventive measures considering the

COVID-19 pandemic are also shared with

the students from time to time.

Department of Design at Nirma

University which deals a lot with practical

hands-on learning had to adapt to new

methods of teaching to continue the

learning process. The department

tweaked a few assignments and began

with Innovation through limited

resources. Students are being

encouraged to develop observation

skills, understand the challenges of

limited resources and taught how to turn

those limitations into innovative ideas.

The students have been working through

apps such as Stopmotion Studio on their

laptops and phones to learn the

techniques of storytelling through

objects found in their homes.


Academic Continuity Through Online Teaching

The current COVID-19 pandemic has brought upon a heightened sense of uncertainty in

every aspect of life, and academics is no different. The constituent institutes of Nirma

University have made every effort to continue imparting education by adapting to the

online teaching method. Several web-based platforms having interactive whiteboards

such as Microsoft Whiteboard, Google Jam board, Concept Board, etc, video

conferencing applications such as Google meet, Skype, etc, and online teaching-learning

management tools such as Google Classroom and other teacher-student collaborative

tools have been integrated for learning.

The Institute of Technology have adopted ICT in their teaching learning process long

ago, much before the COVID-19 crisis. In fact, the institute was earlier awarded ‘CCI

Technology Award’ at the State Level and FICCI Award for Best University in the use of

technology at the National level.

Post lockdown all the constituent Institutes of Nirma University have approached

eTeaching-learning with a much focused approach. It has been decided to complete the

syllabus through online live classes as well as by recording of the sessions and later

distributing it. The Institutes have been running their online classes like offline classes, in

a very systematic and disciplined way. The practice of flipping the classroom and

blended learning came very handy post lockdown time, which was already in use earlier.

Faculty are conducting online assessment using moodle software, google quiz forms,


Student Mentoring in

COVID-19 Pandemic

The student mentoring becomes

inevitable in a situation where they have

a dream to complete their project to

demonstrate their ability, and suddenly a

pandemic like COVID-19 brings a pause.

Under such a situation, the Institutes

decided to get in touch with each and

every student. The e-mail

communication from faculty mentors,

Whatsapp and Google Meet chat with

individuals; and group chats for general

discussions were initiated. The

handholding and refining project scopes

to extending help for writing the project

reports, soliciting assignment

completion, to understand the social

challenges, reaching to remote locations

through peer are the tasks that mentors

met happily.

The mentors also addressed student

concerns about summer internships and

final exams, helping them with relevant

information and guidance. The students

have also been advised to avail the

counselling facility provided by the

University in case of psychological and

emotional issues due to pandemic and

lockdown situation.

Undergraduate Research

Council

Institute of Pharmacy, Nirma University

has established the Undergraduate

Research Council to encourage

participation of undergraduate students

in research related activities. Some of the

objectives of the Council include, provide

proper guidance to students, engaging

students into practical and real life

problem solving, support the students to

pursue multi-disciplinary research in

Pharmaceutical Sciences, nurture the

ideas through financial support under

Idea Lab, to promote student exchange

with reputed organisations of India and

abroad.

Establishment of Pre-Incubation Centre

A Pre-Incubation Centre is established at Nirma University to support BTech final year

student’s innovative idea with technical advancement and commercial viability and

transforming it into Proof-of-Concept (POC) stage. This centre will motivate, support and

mentor students for identification, development and commercialisation of their

innovative ideas. Selected projects will get financial assistance up to Rs 50,000 for Proof

of concept. 5 projects from Institute of Technology are selected under pre-incubation

funding scheme in Feb 2020.

Faculty Induction Programme

Centre for Quality Assurance and Academic Development (CQAAD) organised the first

Online Faculty Induction Programme from May 26-June 21, 2020. The University has

been organising induction programme for supporting new teachers in techniques that

will help them and the students succeed. The faculty induction programme aimed to

discuss the nuances of effective classroom teaching and pedagogy, ways to make the

classroom more interesting and interactive, guidelines for enhancing the personality and

tips for improving capabilities for resource awareness and knowledge generation. In

context of the existing pandemic there was a special emphasis on online teaching- its

nuances, tools, tips and precautions. A total of 27 faculty members from the constituent

institutes of the university benefitted from the programme.


Centre for Energy Law, Policy and Strategy

The Institute of Law inaugurated its Centre for Energy Law, Policy and Strategy on Feb 4, 2020. The aim of the Centre is to assimilate,

consolidate, and explore the multidisciplinary nature of energy law, policy and strategies and their linkage with environment and

development related issues through a multifaceted approach. This will be achieved through research and study of economics of energy,

energy options for sustainable development oriented governance and national security strategies with a transnational and global

perspective.

On this occasion a seminar was also conducted on “Contemporary Legal Issues of Energy Accessibility, Affordability, Sustainability and

Security”. The event was presided by Dr Anup K Singh, Director General, Nirma University. The chief guest of the event was Ms Sunaina

Tomar, IAS, Principal Secretary to Government of Gujarat, Energy and Petrochemical Department. Dr S Gangotra, Senior Technical

Advisor to the Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission; Mr Anil Kumar, IPS, DG Special Police Establishment, Lokayukta MP; and, Mr Raj

Singh Niranjan, Partner, Trans India Law Associates, New Delhi, joined the seminar as keynote speakers.


• Prof V S Chauhan, Chairman,

Executive Committee, NAAC

delivered a public lecture on

“Challenges and Opportunities in

Higher Education in India” on Feb 28,

2020 hosted by Institute of Science,

Nirma University.

• Dr Jagdish Gandhi delivered a lecture

on ‘The Lost Civilization of the

Saraswati river’ on Feb 20, 2020 at

Institute of Architecture and

Planning. Dr Gandhi is an Ecologist

environmentalist, numismatist,

photographer, heritage activist and

researcher in ancient Indian Sciences.

• Mr V Balasubramaniam, founding

Managing Director and Chief

Executive Officer of India

International Exchange IFSC Ltd

(India INX) gave a lecture on “Recent

developments of capital markets in

IFSC” at Institute of Commerce on

Feb 27, 2020. India INX is the first

International Exchange from India in

GIFT City, Gujarat. Speaking on the

occasion, Mr Balasubramaniam

emphasised that the establishment

of India’s first IFSC at GIFT City

Gujarat shows that the stance of

India towards capital markets is

changing. He familiarised the

participants with the capital market

concepts like FDI, FPI, Masala Bonds,

etc and the role they play in the

functioning of capital markets. A

total of 150 students along with

faculty members attended the event.

• Mr Ajay Tomar, IPS-Special

Commissioner of Police, Ahmedabad

gave a lecture on "Police and Security

Administration" on Feb 10, 2020. Mr

Thomas shared his insights on police

origin, power to arrest and

legitimised use of force by the police.

• Prof Sunil Jambhelkar, LECOM School

of Pharmacy, Florida, USA delivered

talk on various topics, like In vivo in

vitro correlation, Pharmacokinetic

Software and Basic Concept of

Pharmacokinetics at Institute of

Pharmacy during Feb 11-15, 2020.

• Prof A K Chaturvedi, Director, IIT-

Roorkee delivered a keynote address

during the national seminar on ‘5G

Wireless Technology’ on Feb 14, 2020

at Institute of Technology.

• Prof Ronald White, Executive Dean,

College of Science and Engineering,

James Cook University, Australia met

with the Director General, Director

Research & Innovation, Director

Institute of Technology and Head

International Relations on Feb 25,

2020; and proposed collaboration in

the fields of Research and Students

Internships.

Visitors

• Mr Vikram Raghavan, Lead Counsel,

World Bank, USA, and an eminent

Constitutional Law Researcher

delivered a distinguished lecture at

Institute of Law on “Granville Austin

and the making of Indian

Constitution” and “Band of Sisters:

The Women who founded our

Republic” on Jan 20, 2019. During the

lecture, Mr Raghavan talked about

the research carried by Granville

Austin, an American historian work’s

on the Indian Constitution. He also

talked about women members of the

Constituent Assembly who played a

vital role in shaping the Constitution.

• Dr Shyam Sunder, James L Frank

Professor of Accounting, Economics,

and Finance, Yale School of

Management, USA gave valuable

insights on “Why accounting is

necessary and how accounting

frauds are affecting the economy” at

the Institute of Commerce on Jan 13,

2020.

• Dr Rikin Thakkar, Vice President,

Telecommunications and Spectrum

Policy at Multicultural Media,

Telecom and Internet Council

(MMTC) delivered an expert talk on

“Evolution towards 5G” on Jan 6,

2020 at Institute of Technology.

• Mr Rohit Bhardwaj, Manager, New

Age Business and Mr Mohan BV,

Manager, Strategy & Innovation,

from Robert Bosch, Bangalore

delivered expert talk on “New Age

Business, Trading and innovation” on

Jan 30, 2020 at Institute of

Technology.


Events & Activities

Study-In-Gujarat Campaign

Department of Higher & Technical Education, Government of Gujarat organised Study-

In-Gujarat campaign in Kenya and Uganda during Feb 12-20, 2020. Dr Mehul R Naik,

Head, International Relations represented Nirma University at the exhibitions,

roadshows, schools and colleges; and also signed MoUs with the top rank universities of

Kenya and Uganda – University of Nairobi and Makerere University.

Design Thinking

Workshop

Centre for Entrepreneurship organised a

two-day 'Design Thinking Workshop' in

association with Gujarat Technology

University, Ahmedabad on Jan 21-22,

2020 for the students of Idea lab, Nirma

University. The workshop was facilitated

by Mr Karmjitsingh Bihola, Assistant

Professor, Gujarat Technological

University, Ahmedabad. The focus was on

explaining that understanding the

problem faced by the people is more

important for the success of the solution

rather than working on the execution of

the solution without knowing its

requirements, which helped the students

differentiate between traditional thinking

and design thinking.

Seminar on Niryat Bandhu

Institute of Commerce organised a

seminar on “Niryat Bandhu” in

collaboration with DGFT, Ministry of

Commerce, Ahmedabad Regional Office

on Jan 11, 2020. Mr Anil Kumar

Choudhary, Additional Directorate

General of Foreign Trade (Indian Trade

Service, 1986 batch) addressed the

students. Mr Rohit Soni, Deputy

Directorate General of Foreign Trade,

Ahmedabad (Indian Trade Service, 2013

batch) discussed the various aspects

regarding the export and import

business in India.


Republic Day Celebrations stOn Jan 26, 2020 the University celebrated the 71 Republic Day of the nation. Prof

Ashoke Chatterjee, former Director, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad was the

Chief Guest on this occasion. The flag hoisting was followed by an impressive march past

by the NCC cadets of the university. A photo exhibition of the best photos clicked by the

students in the photography contest was also organised as a part of the event.

UltraTech India Next

Webinar

Civil Engineering Department, Institute of

Technology under the Indian Concrete

Institute (ICI), Student Chapter organised

the 'UltraTech India Next Webinar', a

knowledge sharing initiative of UltraTech

cement for the undergraduate students

of Civil Engineering department on Jan

29, 2020.The main aim of organising

online webinar was to give students

knowledge regarding 'Contribution of

Building Chemicals in Building

Performance'. The webinar was

conducted by well-known speaker Mr

Padmakar, a Civil Engineering

professional with more than 32 years of

experience.

Cyclothon 2020

The Rotaract club of Institute of

Management in collaboration with

Mavericks Committee organised

Cyclothon on Feb 2, 2020, with the

theme 'Pedal Preserve Nature'. As many

as 95 students participated in the event.

The event emphasised on conserving

fuel for the future and to save the

environment from pollution by

encouraging the use of cycles.

Drop of Ink

Sumantra - The Literary Club of Institute

of Management organised Drop of Ink

2020, the flagship event of the club in

collaboration with The Monologue on

Feb 20, 2020. The theme of the event

was storytelling and poetry. The speakers

included Mariyam Saigal, Abha Mehra,

Abhaya Mishra, and Mohammed

Sadriwala. The participants were from

Nirma and other B-schools.


Smart India Hackathon 2020

Centre for Entrepreneurship organised a campus preliminary round for the Smart India Hackathon on Jan 18, 2020. The event provided

a platform to students to solve existing issues in the current working system, with viable options. A total of 32 teams participated from

Institute of Technology, Nirma University. The teams came up with great ideas, solving current issues ranging from farming to traffic

control, using a variety of recent technological advances such as AI and ML.

The jury comprising Mr Pratik Patel, CEO and co-founder, Yudiz Solutions; Mr Virang Mankad, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Amnex

Infotechnologies; Mr Nirat Patel, co-founder of Vendaxo Pvt Ltd; and Mr Dhaval Shah, Director, Nessa Illuminations adjudged team

Blitzkrieg lead by Anant Raina as the winning team, and team Scramblers lead by Deep Dhaval Pujara as the runners up.

NICOM rdThe 23 Nirma International Conference on Management (NICOM) organised by the Institute of Management was held during Jan 3-5,

2020. Mr Santosh Desai, MD & CEO, Future brands was the chief guest for the inaugural session. The event was also graced by the

president of Nirma University, Dr Karsanbhai Patel. A total of 52 selected papers were published in two books, “Customer, Competition

& Marketing Strategy”, and “Innovations in Marketing”, which were released during the inaugural ceremony.

Keynote speakers for the plenary session included, Mr Pradeep Poddar, Director, Monsanto, Welspun who delivered valuable insights on

the topic “Marketing Landscape: Change in the Making”; Mr Vijay Parthasarathy, Founder, InTouch Consulting.in, spoke on the theme

“Marketing Landscape Constant behind the change”; Mr Maharana Ray, Vice President, Probiking, Bajaj Auto Ltd spoke on the topic

“Managing customer and competition”; Mr Puneet Avasthi, Senior Executive Director, Kantar, talked on the theme “Marketing Strategy in

a digital world”; and Mr R Balasubramanian, Director, Resource Mobilisation, Sankara Eye Foundation addressed the audience on the

topic “Healthcare Marketing in India.” The chief guest for the valedictory session was Mr Nitin Parekh, CFO, Zydus Cadila.


ISCBC-NIPiCON-2020

Institute of Pharmacy, Nirma University jointly with Indian Society of Chemists and thBiologists (ISCB) organised its flagship event NIPiCON-2020, the 5 International

Conference on the theme “Integrating Chemical, Biological and Pharmaceutical Sciences

for Innovations in Health Care” during Jan 22-24, 2020. Prof Nigel G J Richards, Professor,

Cardiff University, UK was the Chief Guest and Prof Christophe Len, PSL Research

University, Paris, France was the Guest of Honor during the inaugural function. Dr

Anamik Shah, Vice Chancellor, Gujarat Vidyapith & President, Indian Society of Chemists

and Biologists; Dr P M S Chauhan, Former Chief Scientist, CDRI, Lucknow & General

Secretary, ISCB; also graced the ocassion.

Some of the distinguished visitors during

the three day event included, Prof Anil

Kumar Singh, IIT Bombay; Dr Keshav Deo,

Executive Director, Almelo Private

Limited, Hyderabad; Dr Shipra Chauhan,

Scientist, Zeon Corporation, Kawasaki,

Japan; Dr Ravindra V Singh, Head-India

R&D, Sigma-Aldrich Chemicals Pvt Ltd,

Bangalore; Prof Bal Ram Singh, Director,

Botulinum Research Centre and Institute

of Advanced Sciences, North Dartmouth,

MA; Dr Mukesh Nandaveis, Associate

Professor, Delhi Pharmaceutical Sciences

and Research University, New Delhi; Prof

Dalip Kumar, Associate Dean, BITS Pilani,

Rajasthan; Dr Marco L Lolli, Assistant

Professor, University of Turin, Italy; Dr

Laurent El Kaim, Laboratoire de Synthèse

Organique, Ecole Polytechnique,

Palaiseau, France; Prof Vassilios

Papadopoulos, Dean, School of

Pharmacy, University of Southern

California, Los Angeles, USA; Dr Sanjib

Bhattacharyya, Department of

Pharmaceutical Science and Chinese

Traditional Medicine, Southwest

University, Chongqing Shi, China; Prof

Saranjit Singh, Dean & Head,

Pharmaceutical Analysis, NIPER, Mohali;

Prof Asit K Chakraborti, Head,

Department of Medicinal Chemistry,

NIPER, Punjab.

The conference was attended by more

than 400 researchers in the areas of

chemical sciences, biological sciences,

pharmaceutical science and other related

areas.


National Level Case Analysis Competition

Institute of Commerce organised a National level Case Analysis Competition in

collaboration with Indian Society for Training and Development (ISTD), Ahmedabad

Chapter on Jan 31, 2020 on the theme “Businesses balancing social and economic

strings”. The participants were provided the case 48 hours prior to the competition.

More than 120 participants from different institutes/universities including, IIT Gwalior, IIS

Jaipur, Christ University - Pune, Karnavati University, P P Savani College, PDPU

Gandhinagar, DAVV Indore, Kachchh University, Prestige University - Indore, R K Patni

College - Kishangarh, Mewar Girl's College, VNSGU, BRCM College of Business

Administration, CU Shah College of Commerce, Amrut Mody School of Management,

GLS University, and ICAI - Ahmedabad Chapter participated in the event. The team from

the Institute of Management, Nirma University stood first, and Amrut Mody School of

Management stood second.

Shaheed Diwas

NCC Unit of Nirma University in association with Students Welfare Board organised

Shaheed Diwas on Jan 30, 2020 on the University campus. The students performed a

group play based on a theme of Shaheed Diwas to pay homage to martyrs who laid

down their lives for our betterment. A poster exhibition was also held on the same

theme.

Perspective Richter 10

Institute of Management inaugurated its

three-day annual management and

cultural fest “Perspective Richter 10” on

Jan 16, 2020. The event kick-started with

the management conclave, “Nirmatatva:

Be Bold, Be Brave, Be You”. This year's

theme was 'Mavericks and Misfits'.

Eminent guests at the event included, Ms

Mira Erda, India's first female F4 Racer to

race in Euro JK Series; Mr Amit Koijam,

former Captain from Indian Army;

Gyanvatsal Swami, motivational speaker

and social reformer, BAPS Swaminarayan

Mandir; and Mr Parthasarathi Mishra, ex

CHRM, Tata Steel Ltd. The speakers

enlightened the students by sharing their

personal experiences and helped them

to inculcate the true qualities of a

Maverick. They also focused on how to

achieve a goal by believing in oneself.


Workshop on Computer Aided Drug Design

Software

Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Institute of Pharmacy under the banner of

Centre for Continuing Education (CCE), Nirma University organised a workshop on

“Computer Aided Drug Design Software” supported by Schrödinger Inc, USA on Jan 21,

2020. Dr Prajwal Nandekar and Dr Vinod Devaraji, Application Scientists form

Schrödinger were the resource persons. A total of 33 participants from various Institutes

across the county, like IIT-BHU Varanasi, BITS Pilani, DAVV Indore, MS University Baroda,

Gujarat University, Shyamsundar College West Bengal, ARIBAS Anand, SP University

Anand attended the workshop.

National Voter Day

NCC Unit of Nirma University in

association with Students Welfare Board thcelebrated the 10 National Voter Day on

Jan 25, 2020 at the University Campus.

The National Voters' Day (NVD) has been

celebrated on Jan 25 every year since

2011, all across the country at over ten

lakh locations across the nation,

including polling station areas, sub

divisions, divisions, district and state

headquarters, to mark the Foundation

day of Election Commission of India,

which was established on Jan 25, 1950.

The main purpose of the NVD

celebration is to encourage, facilitate and

maximise the enrolment, especially for

the new voters. Dedicated to the voters

of the country, the Day is utilised to

spread awareness among voters for

promoting informed participation in the

electoral process. On this occasion,

Nirma University organised a quiz

competition, and poster/drawing

competition on the theme "Value of One

Vote".


Converting Plastic Waste

to Wealth

Indian Green Building Council (IGBC)

celebrates Jan 23 to Jan 29, 2020 as

“Harit Prem Bharat Mahotsav”, and to

mark this occasion, OrCES (Organisation

of Civil Engineering Students), IGBC

Student's Chapters along with NSS unit

of Nirma University organised a student

symposium on “Converting Plastic Waste

to Wealth” on Jan 23, 2020. The event

was inaugurated by Mr Jayesh Hariyani,

Co-chairman IGBC Ahmedabad Chapter,

and Dr R N Patel, Additional Director,

SoE, Institute of Technology, Nirma

University.

Expert lectures on “Waste to Energy” by

Dr Bina Patel, Senior Manager & Head

Abellon Clean Energy Limited,

Ahmedabad; “Recycling of plastics and

waste management” by Dr P K Manadal,

Assistant Professor, CIPET: Institute of

Plastics Technology (IPT) Ahmedabad;

and “Plastic waste recycling and relevant

technologies” by Mr Sudhir Shukla,

Director, Soletch Recycler, Baroda were

organised.

More than 120 students of Civil

Engineering Department participated in

the competitions, like Let's Talk-a Case

Study Competition; Ideate-Idea Pitching

Competition; and Reuse it-Model Making

Competition. An awareness programme

about the various aspects of reuse of

plastic material was also organised

during the event.

Talk Show

Nirma Institute of Pharmacy Students Association (NIPSA) organised a Talk Show with

the well-known author and TEDx speaker, Mr Shantanu Gupta on Jan 31, 2020, at

Institute of Pharmacy. The event also saw the launch of the annual magazine 'Seismic

Bytes' of NIPSA.

Workshop on Medical Writing

Department of Pharmacology, Institute of Pharmacy under the banner of Centre for

Continuing Education (CCE), Nirma University organised a one day workshop on Medical

Writing on Feb 15, 2020. Dr Anupama Ramkumar, CEO & Principal Consultant, Arkus

Research Pvt Ltd, Ahmedabad; Prof Sunil Jambhekar, Professor, LECOM School of

Pharmacy, Florida, USA; and Dr Rakesh Ojha Principal Medical Writer, Syneos Health,

Global Medical Writing, Pune were the resource persons. A total of 94 participants across

Gujarat attended the workshop.


Kalp 2020

Kalp, the Annual student festival of Institute of Architecture and Planning was organised during Feb 10-12, 2020. The festival started

with the inauguration of the exhibition of student works followed by a talk by renowned academician and scholar Prof Jaimini Mehta on

'Modernity and Modernism'. Panel discussion was held on 'Future of architectural education and Planning for climate change' by

eminent speakers like Ar Jayesh Hariyani, Prof Neelkanth Chhaya, Ar Rajeev Kathpalia, Ar Riaz Tayyibji, and Prof Anil Roy. Guest lectures

were conducted by Dr Amarjeet Singh, Chairman, RERA, Gujarat on 'Real estate development in India'; Prof Jamal Ansari, former

professor at School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi shared his experiences in the Master plan development of Noida and Greater

Noida; and Lt Gen Vishwambhar Singh, a three-star general of the Indian army, and an architect made a stimulating presentation on the

'Role of an architect in the Indian army'. Some of the other events held during the three-days included, a quiz competition, workshop

on landscape and marble art, cultural night, competitions like In-house sports, Treasure hunt, etc.

International Teaching Month

Institute of Law celebrated the 'International Teaching Month' from Feb 10-22, 2020. The programme witnessed collaboration of

professors and thinkers from universities and institutes established outside India. The speakers included, Prof Stephan Hardy, Professor

of Law & Dean, Coventry University Law School, UK who conducted session on Comparative Criminal Procedure; Prof Luis G Franceschi,

Senior Director of Governance & Peace, Commonwealth Secretariat, London, who spoke on Comparative Constitutional Law; Prof

Letlhokwa Mpedi, Faculty of Law, University of Johannesburg, South Africa who conducted sessions on Administrative Law; Judge Mel

Flanagan, Former Circuit Judge & Adjunct, USA, and Prof Stephen G Barnes Assistant Dean for Graduate and International Programmes,

Penn State Law, who discussed the various aspects of US Legal System; Dr John Winterdyk, Professor of Criminology, Mount Royal

University, Vancouver, Canada who conducted sessions on Criminology & Comparative Research Methodology; Prof Dietmar Boerner,

HoF University, Germany gave lectures on Comparative Labour Law; Prof Adam Dubin, Faculty of Law, University Madrid, Spain,

conducted sessions on Human Rights; Dr Peter Schäfer, HoF University, Germany talked about the European Legal System; Dr Ricky Lee,

Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame, Sydney, Australia spoke on Space Law; Mr Yili Dautraj, Head of Law, DER Juridik, Stockholm

introduced the students to the basic concepts of International Commercial Arbitration; and Dr Venkat Iyer, Professor and Head, School

of Law, Ulster University, United Kingdom, conducted sessions on International Law.


NUZeal - Inter Institute

Cultural Festival

NUZeal, the Inter Institute Cultural

Festival was organised during Feb 5-7,

2020. More than 550 students, staff and

faculty members from the constituent

Institutes of Nirma University

participated in this festival. A total of 14

external experts were invited to judge

the 23 events under Theatre, Dance,

Music, Fine Arts, and Literary category. A

Personality Contest was also organised

under NUZeal.

Appreciative Coaching for Performance

Excellence

Institute of Management organised a two days Management Development Programme

(MDP) on “Appreciative Coaching for Performance Excellence” on Feb 28-29, 2020 for

industry professionals. Prof Hardik Shah, Associate Professor was the programme leader.

The programme focused on providing deeper insights into coaching process, art of

appreciative coaching and models/tools of coaching for creating positive business

impact. It provided basic and advanced level of coaching competencies for participants

using 'Appreciative Inquiry' principles making significant business contribution.

Participants from Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation Ltd, Somany Ceramics Ltd

and Sunil Sandeep & Company attended the programme.

Awareness Session on Essentials of Patent

Drafting

Ms Gopi Trivedi, patent attorney and a Senior Partner of YJ Trivedi & Company delivered

a talk on 'Essentials of Patent Drafting' on Feb 29, 2020. Ms Trivedi explained the process

of patent filing and the steps involved. She also discussed the advantages of patents in

the current era of research and innovation. The session ended with an interactive

question-answer session.


Seminar on Research Avenues: Opportunities and

Conversion

A one day seminar on “Research Avenues: Opportunities and Conversion” was organised

by Directorate of Research and Innovation, Nirma University on Feb 1, 2020. A total of 84

faculty members and researchers participated in the seminar in which 62 members were

of Nirma University and 22 were from universities and research organisations across

Gujarat.

Dr Sundeep Sarin, Advisor and Scientist ‘G’, Department of Biotechnology, New Delhi

was the chief guest. Dr Ryan Pereira, Regional Officer, United States-India Educational

Foundation (USIEF), Mumbai; Dr Subhash Soni, Mission Director, Gujarat State

Biotechnology Mission (GSBTM); Dr Shilpi Paul, Scientist E, Science and Engineering

Research Board (SERB), New Delhi; Dr Ravi A V Kumar, Scientist, School Co-Director,

Institute of Plasma Research, Ahmedabad; Ms Khyati Ved, Senior Manager in Higher

Education & Society, West India, British Council Division, Mumbai; and Dr P N Tekwani,

Director, Directorate of Research and Innovation, Nirma University delivered information

about the various funding agencies.

Electric Vehicle Awareness

Department of Electrical Engineering, Institute of Technology organised a one day

programme on "Electric Vehicle Awareness" by ARAI, Pune under Department of Heavy

Industries (Government of India) on Feb 27, 2020. Dr K C Vora, Sr Deputy Director &

Head, ARAI Academy, Pune was the Chief Guest. Dr Vora along with ARAI executives

delivered sessions on the Electric Vehicles followed by a demonstration of Electric

vehicles.

Poster Presentation

Directorate of Research and Innovation

(DRI) organised a one-day Poster

Presentation event for Doctoral students

of Nirma University on Feb 15, 2020. The

PhD scholars registered with Institute of

Technology, Institute of Management,

Institute of Law, Institute of Pharmacy,

Institute of Science and Institute of

Architecture & Planning participated in

the event. The purpose of this event was

to provide an opportunity for students to

share their research with other students

and faculty members. It also helps

students to boost their confidence and

initiate interdisciplinary research. A total

of 50 students presented their posters

during the event. Dr Anup K Singh,

Director General of the University along

with Dr P N Tekwani, Director, DRI,

interacted with the students and

discussed their ongoing work and

possible outcome. The Head of the

Institutions as well as faculty members

also gave their valuable inputs to the

students.

ChemFusion 2020

The Department of Chemical

Engineering, Institute of Technology

organised a National Technical

Symposium, ChemFusion 2020 under its

Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers

(IIChE) Student Chapter. The two-day

event organised during March 4-5, 2020

witnessed a participation of over 500

students from a number of engineering

colleges.The symposium was

inaugurated by the Head of Department,

Dr Sanjay Patel. A host of events were

organised as a part of this symposium

that gave participants a platform to test

their engineering knowledge and

practical skills.


Career Guidance Session

Mr Nishodh Saxena, MD, Prowess

Pharma Knowledge Centre, Ahmedabad

conducted a career guidance session at

Institute of Science for MSc students on

Feb 15, 2020. He oriented students about

various emerging fields like, Medical

Coding, Clinical data management,

Insurance processing, Pharmacovigilance,

Medical scribing, Clinical Research as

career options.

‘Paper in Future’

Workshop

Anne Vilsbøll, a Danish painter and

author brought students attention to the

hidden potential of paper as a tool for

modern means of expression in a

workshop conducted on March 2-3,

2020. The workshop involved learning

from some of the works of Anne Vilsbøll

and her incredible experience of 30 years

with paper making, a visit to Kalamkush

(Gandhi ashram paper making unit) and

exploring paper in a completely new way.

Students of Institute of Architecture and

Planning learnt how they can use paper

as an artistic material in varied industries.

Pratidhwani - The Alumni ConclavePratidhwani - The Alumni Conclave of Institute of Management was held on Feb 1, 2020.

The theme for the year was “The Road Not Taken” encompassing how one is always

faced with choices, to decide upon something that will make a difference in one's life.

The conclave witnessed eminent alumni from various industrial domains who shared

their learnings and experience with the current students. The invited speakers for the

conclave included Mr Abbey Thomas (Associate Director, Kellogg), Mr Anubhav Sood

(Client Relationship Manager, Amazon), Ms Aastha Tatia (Life Coach), Mr Thomas

Mampilly (HR business partner, Wells Fargo), Ms Priyatna Basu (Ex Vice President, Yes

Bank), Ms Akanksha Bumb (Co-founder & COO , F5 escapes), Mr Anurag Kabra (Co-

founder, Pegasus), Mr Dhruvil Patel (Director, BPC projects and Infrastructure), Mr Parth

Das (Associate Director, SAP), Mr Manupratap Solanki (Innovation Manager, HUL ) , Ms

Charul Mohta (Lead business analyst, CGI), and Mr Rajesh Hudda (Vice President,

Syntex).

Lecture Series on Multimodal Human Computer

Interfaces Department of Computer Science Engineering and ACM Student Chapter, Institute of

Technology, Nirma University invited Dr Stephen Brewster, a renowned researcher in the

field of HCI and Professor, School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow, UK to

deliver the three day lecture series on “Multimodal Human Computer Interfaces” during

March 5-7, 2020. Dr Brewster delivered interesting talks on Multimodal HCI, Haptics and

HCI, Novel interfaces for cars and AR/VR applications and research trends. The talk on

March 5 was preceded by the inauguration of the ACM Student Chapter by Dr Stephen

Brewster; Dr Alka Mahajan, Dean, Faculty of Technology; and Dr Madhuri Bhavsar, HoD-

CSE. The next two days focused on more in-depth teaching to a selective audience of

students working in the area of HCI and AR/VR. Furthermore, Dr Stephen Brewster also

interacted with Dr Anup K Singh, Director General of Nirma University for strengthening

the collaborations between both the Institutions.


Inter University Sports Fest: AbhimaNU

The third edition of Inter University Sports Fest “AbhimaNU” was organised at the

university during Feb 28 to March 6, 2020. AbhimaNU received participation of 500

students from 23+ universities across the state, for games including, Cricket, Volleyball,

Basketball, Table Tennis, Lawn Tennis, and Chess.

Flow Cytometry in Research and Health Care

Institute of Science along with Centre for Continuing Education (CCE) and Indian

Immunology Society (IIS) organised a workshop on 'Flow Cytometry in Research and

Health Care' during March 3-5, 2020 coordinated by Dr Dabu Lal Gupta, Assistant

Professor, Institute of Science. Dr Subhada Chiplunkar, Director, Advanced Centre for

Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer (ACTREC), Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai

was the chief guest of the inaugural session. Professor, N K Mehra, Former Dean of

Research, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi presided over the

event.

During the three day event, lecture series were organised by eminent speakers working

in areas of immunology such as Cancer Immunology, Immunology of T cells, and

Monocytes Transplantation Immunology. This was followed by hands-on training and

detailed analysis by using Attune NxT Flow cytometer and relevant software. A total of

82 participants attended the lecture series and 27 participants also attended the hands-

on workshop.

Workshop on RISC-V Boot

CampA two-day workshop on ‘RISC-V Boot

Camp’ was organised by Electronics and

Communication Engineering

Department, Institute of Technology

jointly with SiFive during March 2-3, 2020

with more than 150 participants. SiFive is

the first fabless semiconductor company

to build customised silicon based on the

free and open RISC-V instruction set

architecture. The workshop was aimed

for the faculty members, research

scholars, Industries and R&D personals.

It included key concepts of the open

RISC-V instruction set architecture and

hands-on FPGA development board.

NSS Students InitiativesAs per the initiative of the NSS Office,

Government of Gujarat, Gandhinagar, the

NSS volunteers of the constituent

institutes of Nirma University registered

in the Integrated Government Online

Training (IGOT) and Arogya Setu. A total

of 24 students registered for the training

programme at IGOT. A total of 293 NSS

students have downloaded the Arogya

Setu app. The NSS volunteers of the

University also made a total of 1469

homemade masks and distributed in

their vicinity.

Online Quiz CompetitionInstitute of Commerce organised

“Quizzing Championship - A National

Level Online Quiz Competition” on May

10, 2020. The goal of the competition

was to motivate students towards

continuous learning. The competition

was held for students appeared in HSC

during the academic year 2019-20. A

total of 850 participants across the

nation and few from gulf countries

participated in the event. The first

position was achieved by Ananya Mathur

of Tagore International School, New

Delhi who received a cash prize of Rs

5000 and a certificate. Sounit Karttikay

from Mayoor School, Ajmer stood

second and received a cash prize of Rs

3000 and a certificate. Varun Chaturvedi

from DPS Gandhinagar bagged the third

position and was awarded a cash prize of

Rs 2000 and a certificate.


Ad-wit-tise Centre for Entrepreneurship, Nirma University organised Ad-wit-tise, an online

competition for the students of Nirma University. The 3-week long event organised

during March 24-April 14, 2020 aimed to bring out the unique marketing, branding, and

advertising skills of the participants. The event was carried out through Entrepreneurship

Cell's Instagram handle in two phases, where the first phase included registering the

teams and their commercial videos, and the second phase was publicising these videos.

Amidst the lockdown situation due to COVID-19, the students were motivated to form a

team of maximum 3 people and shoot a video indoors commercialising the products in

the most innovative way possible and submitting them through a google form.

In phase 2, the videos of all registered teams were uploaded on entrepreneurship cell's

Instagram handle and participants had to publicise their videos. After a healthy

competition amongst the 10 teams, selection was carried out of two best ideas that were

creative and indulging; and a video that was liked the most by everybody.

The team 'Zoo Vines' consisting of Aditya Mistry, Rudram Vyas, and Maharsh Shah stbagged the 1 position. They commercialised the product 5star by creating a news

channel and reminding people to wash their hands thoroughly while enjoying the

chocolate. Team 'The Incredibles' comprising Anmol Thaiya, Parikshith Nair, and ndAishwarya Borgaonkar secured 2 position. The team had created a video on 5star

related to WhatsApp messages where a child shares her emotions and feelings during

the ongoing pandemic. 'Germi King and Queen' won the most favourite commercial with

over 600 likes. The team consisting of Piyushi Jain, Risha Singh, and Rishabh Sharma had

created a video on toothpaste and shared importance of dental hygiene through

drawings and puppet drama.


E-Hackathon

Centre for Entrepreneurship, Nirma University organised an E-Hackathon, an online

Business Idea Hackathon during May 15-17, 2020 with 150+ participants from all the

institutes of Nirma University. The 3-day event aimed to find solutions to the problems

faced by various Industries during the time of the pandemic was held over the online

platform 'Discord'. From the pool of 30+ Ideas received, the top 20 Ideas were chosen

and teams were formed around them. The teams then worked on their ideas to turn

them into a market viable product and develop an actual go-to-business strategy for it.

Workshops on "BMC - Business Model Canvas" by Akanksha Bhadoria, Senior Associate,

GUSEC (Gujarat University Startup and Entrepreneurship Council), and "How to Pitch?"

by Arun Phillips - Founder, Helptheworld.io were held to help the participants. A panel of

12 mentors from various sectors of Industries including alumni was also on-board to

guide the teams in all the domains be it Technical, Business Plan, Legal, etc.

On May 17, 2020 participants submitted their final Pitch Decks which was viewed by a

panel of three judges. The Top 5 teams further pitched their ideas live on Youtube

channel competing with each other in front of another panel of two judges, Dr Chandan

Chetterji, Former Director, Centre for Entrepreneurship, Gandhinagar; and Ruzan

Khambatta, Founder of Wajra O' Force Empowerment Foundation.

The first position was bagged by team of Jay Lakhani, Naman Kothari, Dhwani Malkan,

Jay Patel, Ritik Rokde, and Hetvi Chaudhary from Institute of Pharmacy, Institute of

Management, and Institute of Science for their product 'Currency Sanitizer', a product

developed to sanitize currency being exchanged at various shops. Second position was

bagged by students of Institute of Pharmacy, Palak Kotak, Rushi Sorthiya, Parv Barot, and

Sarthak Lakhani for their idea on a digitalised token service system for retail shops to

ensure social distancing named as 'Ghar-E-Kirana'. Third position was bagged by

Jitendra Singh, Farhan Daila, Nikhil Suthar, Om Gupta, Nikhil Tiwari, and Hardil Mistry

from Institute of Pharmacy for their product 'Immuno Spray', a spray with all the vitals

that increases the immunity of a person.

Gujarat Gaurav Divas

As part of "Gujarat Gaurav Divas", 93

students from various institutes of Nirma

University enthusiastically participated in

the drawing, essay writing and poetry

writing competition held online on the

theme 'Corona Warriors of Gujarat',

during May 1-10, 2020.


Virtual Farewell to the

Batch of 2017-2020

The sophomore batch of Institute of

Commerce organised a virtual farewell

for the batch of 2017-2020 through an

online video conferencing platform on

June 11, 2020. Addressing the

graduating batch, Prof Udai Paliwal,

Dean, Institute of Commerce underlined

that this batch is a unique batch of BCom

(Hons) as they have been associated with

advent of several new happenings such

as online classes, online examination and

now virtual farewell. The event

concluded with mixed emotions, while

there was happiness abound as the

students completed their academic

journey, nostalgia marked the event filled

with songs, poems and anecdotes. To

celebrate the joy, more than 100

students and faculty members came

together and reflected over the time they

spent together.

International Day of YogathKeeping in view the current situation, Nirma University celebrated the 6 International

Day of Yoga on the theme 'Yoga @ Home and Yoga with family' on June 21, 2020 as per

the guidelines of the Ministry of AYUSH. About 494 officers, professors, staff, students as

well as NSS volunteers and NCC cadets enthusiastically participated in the event from

the confines of their home.


International Webinar on

Accounting Education and

Accounting Profession

Post COVID-19

Institute of Commerce organised its first

ever international webinar on

‘Accounting Education and Accounting

Profession: Post COVID-19’ on June 6,

2020. The webinar was addressed by Prof

Rajendra P Srivastava, Professor Emeritus

of Accounting & Information Systems,

School of Business, University of Kansas,

Lawrence, USA; Prof Jaco P Fouche,

Professor of Accounting & Finance,

North West University, South Africa; and

Prof Udai Paliwal, Dean at Institute of

Commerce, Nirma University,

Ahmedabad. A total of 232 participants

were present during the webinar, which

included prominent faculties,

practitioners and students across the

country and abroad. Following the

presentation by the three resource

persons and the IAA president Prof G

Soral, there was an interactive session

through chat box.

Opportunities for Design

Professionals Post COVID-

19

Institute of Architecture and Planning,

Nirma University in collaboration with

RICS School of Built Environment Amity

University organised a webinar on

"Opportunities for Design Professionals

Post COVID-19", for final and pre-final

year Planning and Architecture students

on June 1, 2020. A total of 125

participants attended the event. The

session was conducted by Prof Amol

Shimpi (MRICS) - Associate Dean and

Director, School of Real Estate and

Infrastructure.

Webinars

Sustainable Future, Lessons from the Pandemic

A webinar on ‘Sustainable Future, Lessons from the Pandemic’ by Mr Kartikeya Sarabhai,

Founder & Director, Centre for Environment Education was organised by Institute of

Management on June 16, 2020. Mr Sarabhai discussed the positive and negative

impacts of COVID-19 on environment and emphasised the importance of generation of

bio-medical waste on a daily basis. He also discussed the three pillars for sustainability

(Social, Environmental and Economic) and how we will have to bring changes in our

lifestyle for a sustainable future.

Phygital Marketing

Club NiChe of Institute of Management organised a webinar on June 20, 2020 on the

theme 'Phygital Marketing'. Speakers for the session were Mr Ram Jalan (Digital

Marketing Consultant and owner at DINTW), Mr Srihari Gopinath (Director at Hewlett

Packard), and Mr Harshvardhan Chauhaan (Vice President, Marketing at Spencer's Retail

& Omnichannel). The discussion emphasised on the evolving megatrends in phygital

marketing and how it affects the traditional business models. With the help of real life

examples (Amazon, DLF, HP), the speakers made this elusive topic easy to understand

and apply.


The second webinar under the series was

held on June 15, 2020 on "Education on

Cybercrime and Cyber Laws:

Interventions and Experiences". The

speakers of the webinar were Ms Bianca

Kopp, Global Coordinator (tertiary level)

at E4J Initiative, UNODC; Mr Jayant

Mishra, ROSA Law Enforcement Expert;

Mr Krishna Sastry Pendyala, Executive

Director at Cyber Security Services, PwC,

India; Mr Samarth Pathak,

Communications Officer and Focal Point

(E4J), Regional Office for South Asia,

UNODC; and Dr Bishwa Kalyan Dash,

Assistant Professor, Institute of Law,

Nirma University.

Webinar Series on

Changing Dynamics of IP

Regime during COVID-19

Centre for IPR, Institute of Law organised

a webinar series on “Changing Dynamics

of IP Regime during COVID-19”. The first

webinar was on “Role of Patents and

Technology Transfer in coping with post

COVID-19 conditions” by Dr M

Padmavati, Professor and Dean, Rajiv

Gandhi School of Intellectual Property

Law, IIT Kharagpur on June 6, 2020. Mr G

R Raghavender, Joint Secretary,

Department of Justice, Ministry of Law

and Justice, Government of India was the

speaker for the second webinar on

“Patents and Pandemics-Role of Patent

Pooling in combatting COVID-19” held

on June 13, 2020. Mr Sachin Sathyarajan,

lecturer at Jindal Global Law School

conducted the third webinar on “Can

patent-pooling ensure equitable access

to COVID-19 health technologies in a

divided world” on June 13, 2020.

Webinar on Public Health

Care Laws

The Students Research Council organised

a webinar series on Public Health Care

Laws. The first session was conducted on

June 9, 2020 on "Changing dimensions

of Public Health Care Laws post COVID-

19". The speakers included Dr Bismi

Machine Learning using MATLAB

A webinar on ‘Machine Learning using MATLAB’ for the students of Institute of

Technology was organised during June 24-26, 2020. The sessions were conducted by

faculty members, Dr Nagendra Gajjar and Dr Ruchi Gajjar with hands on experience. Mr

Viral Shah, an alumni and Engineer of Machine Learning Group, einfochips, Ahmedabad

also joined them in conducting the session. Close to 300 students attended the webinar.

Leveraging Digitalisation for Business

Club NiChe of Institute of Management hosted a webinar on June 2, 2020 with Mr

Manish Shah (CEO at JCR Fashion Retail Ltd), Mr Pawan Kulkarni (GM at JB Chemicals

and Pharmaceuticals Ltd), and Mr Praful Jain (Digital Marketing Professional) as the

panellists. The discussion centred on digitalisation and how it is important in these

unprecedented times due to COVID-19.

Minding the Mind

A webinar on “Minding the Mind” was organised by Institute of Commerce on June 24,

2020. Dr Parag Amin, Dean - Marketing, SEISCOMS - Mumbai, NLP Practitioner and Life

Coach was the keynote speaker. The event was moderated by Dr Sumita Shroff Goyal

and Dr Avani Shah, Assistant Professor, Institute of Commerce, Nirma University. The

speaker demonstrated various mindfulness techniques for the benefit of the participants

and also illustrated internal and external techniques for mind management. A total of

around 140 members, including students and faculty members were present in the

webinar.

Education for Justice Webinar Series

Institute of Law in a joint collaboration with United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

(UNODC) organised an open webinar series under Education for Justice (EJ4) initiative.

The first webinar was held on June 4, 2020 on "Education for Justice and the Rule of Law:

Good Practices and Innovations". The speakers of the webinar were Ms Bianca Kopp,

Global Coordinator (tertiary level) at E4J Initiative, UNODC; Mr Jayant Mishra, ROSA Law

Enforcement Expert; Mr Krishna Sastry Pendyala, Executive Director at Cyber Security

Services, PwC, India; Mr Samarth Pathak, Communications Officer and Focal Point (E4J),

Regional Office for South Asia, UNODC; and Mr Nitesh Chaudhary, Assistant Professor at

Institute of Law, Nirma University.


• "Welding as a Career-The Untold

Success" by Mr Devendra Gope,

Business Development Manager,

Fronius India Private Limited on June

25, 2020 for students of BTech and

MTech programme in Mechanical

Engg Dept.

• "Micro-Fluidics and Disease

Diagnosis" by Prof Amit Agrawal, IIT

Bombay; Prof Rajneesh Bhardwaj, IIT

Bombay; and Prof Suman

Chakraborty, IIT Kharagpur on June

25, 2020 for MTech students and

faculty members of Mechanical Engg

Dept.

• “Understanding Cement Test

Reports” by Er. Pavan Y Sethi, Zonal

Head, JK White Cement on June 6,

2020 was organised by the

Department of Civil Engineering,

Institute of Technology under the

Indian Concrete Institute (ICI),

Student Chapter and in association

with JK White Cement for the

undergraduate and postgraduate

students of Civil Engineering

Department.

• “Common Complaints at Site and its

Remedies” by Mr Himanshu Patel,

Assistant General Manager, Customer

Service, Gujarat Head, Nuvoco Vistas

Corporation Ltd on June 25, 2020 by

Indian Concrete Institute Student's

Chapter, Nirma University for Civil

Engineering students of the

university.

• Imprintz, the HR Club of Institute of

Management organised a webinar on

the theme "Caring, Listening, and

Empathy are Priority" on June 12,

2020. Mr Hemal Shah, Managing

Director at HR Re-Engineers spoke

about importance of effective

communication by “being interested”

rather than “being interesting”.

• Dr Jigar Mehta, Critical Care

Specialist, KD Hospital, Ahmedabad,

delivered expert talk on ‘Awareness

Gopalakrishnan, Head, Department of Law, University of Kerala, and Dean, Faculty of

Law, MG University; and Dr Purvi Pokhariyal, Dean and Director, Institute of Law, Nirma

University.

The second session in the series was held on June 25, 2020 on “Emerging challenges to

the Public Health Laws in India”. The speakers were Prof Dipika Jain, Professor & Vice

Dean(Research) and Executive Director at Centre for Health Law Ethics & Technology,

Jindal Global Law School; Dr Purvi Pokhariyal, Dean and Director; and Dr Madhuri Parikh,

Associate Professor and Head of Department at Institute of Law, Nirma University.

Other Webinars

• “Appointment and Termination of Arbitral Tribunal” on April 20, 2020 by Mr Rahul

Chaturvedi, Associate, Argus Partners; and, Mr Alok Vajpei, Associate, Singhania &

Company, Mumbai.

• “Understanding Practical Aspects of Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process” by Ms

Surbhi Pareek, Senior Associate, Cyril Amarchand and Mangaldas, and Mr Kaustabh

Prakash, Senior Associate, Vaish Associates Advocates on April 21, 2020.

• “Fundamentals of Trade Mark Law” on April 22, 2019 by Mr Aditya Gupta, Attorney,

IRA Law, and Ms Sonal Goel, Associate, Remfry and Sagar.

• The Organisation of Civil Engineering Students, Institute of Technology organised a

webinar on “Three Lessons from Gita and Relaxation Techniques” on April 27, 2020

delivered by Mr Rasa Parayana Dasa, Life coach, ISKCON Temple.

• “Career in legal field after Law school” on May 17, 2020 by the Campus Recruitment

Cell of Institute of Law was attended by CLAT aspirants, students of various law

schools, parents, academician, among others. The speakers were Mr Bhumesh

Verma, Managing Partner at Corp Comm Legal and Mr Saurabh Saraogi, Advocate,

Oxford University.

• Centre for Corporate Law Studies, Institute of Law organised an open-to-all webinar

session on May 24, 2020 on the theme “Impact of COVID-19 on Insolvency and

Bankruptcy Code”. The speakers of the session were Mr Rohit Lalwani, Principal

Associate, AMLEGALS who spoke on “Increase in the threshold limit, the suspension

of IBC and Pre-Pack deals” and Mr Sukrit R Kapoor, Principal Associate, Hammurabi

& Solomon Partners who provided an insight on “Alternatives to IBC: Debt

Restructuring Schemes under Companies Act, 2013”.

• Institute of Commerce organised a webinar on “Digitisation for building business

continuity and resilience during and after COVID-19” on May 27, 2020. Mr Nehal

Vora, MD & CEO, Central Depository Services (India) Limited was the resource

person. The session was attended by 184 participants across the country. A good

number of entries were also received from the countries like Mauritius, South Africa,

Namibia, Rwanda and Netherlands.


• Centre of Competition Law and

Market Study, Institute of Law hosted

a webinar on June 25, 2020 on

“Digital Platforms and Priorities in

Antitrust Enforcement”. The panelists

for the webinar included Mr Salil

Mehra, Professor at Temple

University, Beasely School of Law,

Philadelphia; Dr Geeta Gouri, Former

Member of Competition Commission

of India; Dr Baskaran Balasingham,

Lecturer at Macquarie University,

Australia; and Mr Vikram Sobti,

Partner at Chandiok & Mahajan,

Advocates and Solicitors, New Delhi.

• Centre for International Humanitarian

Law and Human Rights, Institute of

Law organised a webinar on June 26,

2020 on “Race in America: An

Analysis of the US Supreme Court’s

Jurisprudence” by Dr Adam Dubin,

Assistant Professor, Comillas

Pontificial University (Universidad

Pontificia Comillas), Madrid.

• Centre for Corporate Law Studies,

Institute of Law conducted a webinar

on June 28, 2020 on “Corporate

Governance: An idealistic notion or

need of the day” by Senior Advocate

Tushar Hemani, Founder at Lexperts

Law Firm and Former President, ITAT

Bar Association, Ahmedabad.

• Centre for Energy Law Policy and

Strategy, Institute of Law conducted a

webinar on June 29, 2020 on

"Radiation Safety-Regulatory

Perspective" by Dr Avinash

Sonawane, Head of Directorate of

Regulatory Affairs and

Communications (AERB, Government

of India), Mumbai.

on COVID-19’ to faculty and staff members of Institute of Pharmacy on June 8, 2020.

• Mr Bhavik Patel, Senior Scientist, US Pharmacopeia, Drug Product Monograph

Section-India delivered expert talk on ‘Compendium Monograph Development by

QBD Approach’ to MPharm and PhD students of Institute of Pharmacy on June 20,

2020.

• Dr Nirav Patel, Associate Director, Clinical Safety and Biomarker Group-Global

Investigative Immunology Department, Sanofi, USA, delivered talk on “Targeting

Novel Modalities in Inflammatory and Autoimmune Disease: Tolerance Vs

Immunogenicity” to BPharm, MPharm and PhD students on June 23, 2020.

• Dr Mayuri Gandhi, Research Scientist, Sophisticated Analytical Instrument facility,

Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay delivered expert talk on ‘Advancement in

Mass Spectrometry with respect to Drug Analysis to MPharm (Pharmaceutical

Analysis and RA) and PhD students on June 26, 2020.

• Centre for Energy Law Policy and Strategy, Institute of Law hosted a webinar on June

8, 2020 on “Securities Market: Financial Solutions for Energy Sector" by Mr Parag

Jain, Portfolio Management and Investment Consultant, Mumbai.

• Centre for Corporate Law Studies, Institute of Law organised a webinar on June 14,

2020 on “Impact of COVID-19 on Contracts and M&A Transactions” by Advocate

Deepti Dole, Corporate Lawyer and Company Secretary.

• Centre for Energy Law Policy and Strategy, Institute of Law conducted a webinar on

June 15, 2020 on "Application of Inclusive International Negotiation in Energy

Infrastructure Projects" by Dr Shaoming Zhu, International Legal Affairs and Global

Governance Expert, Beijing.

• Centre of Competition Law and Market Study, Institute of Law, in collaboration with

CUTS Institute for Regulation and Competition (CIRC), India conducted a webinar on

June 16, 2020 on “Deal-Value Merger Threshold: Is It the way forward?” The speakers

of the webinar were Mr Bharat Bhudolia, Partner at Competition Law/Antitrust at

AZB & Partners, Mumbai; Ms Deeksha Manchand, Managing Associate at

Competition Law at Chandhiok & Mahajan, Advocates and Solicitors, Delhi; and Mr

Anshuman Sakle, Partner at Competition Law, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, Mumbai.

• Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Law, Institute of Law conducted a webinar on

June 17, 2020 on "Need of Specific Regulations of Artificial Intelligence in India.” The

speaker of the webinar was Dr Pavan Duggal, Senior Advocate at Supreme Court of

India and Chief Executive of Artificial Intelligence Law Hub.

• Centre of Criminal Law and Justice, Institute of Law conducted a webinar on June 21,

2020 on "Domestic Violence and its Rise in Current Situation”. The speakers of the

webinar were Advocate Flavia Agnes, Women's Rights Lawyer with expertise in

marital divorce and property law and Co-Founder of Majlis - a legal and cultural

resource centre; and Advocate Persis Sidhva, Women’s Rights Lawyer at the Supreme

Court.

• Centre for Study of Law and Governance, Institute of Law organised a webinar on

June 24, 2020 on “Federalism: Origin, Evolution and Post COVID times” by Dr

Abhishek Singhvi, Eminent Jurist, third-term sitting MP, Former Chairman-

Parliamentary Standing Committee on Law, and Former ASG of India.


Other Events

• The Electrical Engineering Department, Institute of Technology organised a one-day

workshop on “Advancements and Challenges in Electric Vehicles” under the aegis of

Centre for Continuing Education, Nirma University on March 7, 2020. The workshop

provided insight into the emerging field of Electric Vehicles. Mr B K Vaishya, Ex-

Executive Director, Electric Vehicle Department, Electrotherm (I) Ltd; Mr Dhairya

Shah, Technical Managing Director, Mindra Solar; and Mr Jitesh Dodiya, Lead

Engineer, Menza Motors Pvt Ltd delivered talks which delved into the advancements

and challenges concerning energy storage, charging infrastructure, powertrain,

drivetrain technology in Electric Vehicles.

• Department of Mathematics and Humanities, Institute of Technology under the

banner of Centre for Continuing Education, Nirma University organised a five week

workshop on “Secret of Success” during Feb 5 to March 11, 2020. A total of 188

participants from Institute of Technology attended the workshop.

• Institute of Management organised a

three days MDP on “Effective

Communications for Higher

Performance” under the aegis of

Centre for Continuing Education,

Nirma University during March 11-

13, 2020 for industry professionals.

Prof Nityesh Bhatt, Professor at

Institute of Management was the

programme leader. Six participants

from Gujarat State Petronet Ltd, GSPL

India Transco Ltd, Institute of

Management and Vodafone Idea Ltd

attended the programme.

• The Campus Recruitment Cell of

Institute of Law organised a

workshop on ‘Contract Drafting’ on

Feb 25, 2020 by Mr Abhishek Sinha,

founder of NotJustLex.

• Centre for Corporate Law Studies,

Institute of Law in collaboration with

Centre for Continuous Education

organised a short course titled

“Capacity Building Programme on

International Taxation” on March 7-8,

2020. The course was conducted with

an objective to provide orientation

with the basic concepts of

international taxation, covering

income tax, recent debates in global

tax policy and Finance bill 2020.


Blood Stem Cell Donation

Drive

ISA Student's Chapter Nirma University

organised a Blood Stem Cell Donation

Drive on Feb 29, 2020 with DATRI, a not

for profit organisation which collects and

maintains the data of the volunteers who

want to donate the blood stem cells.

Online Session by NSS

unit of Institute of

Pharmacy

The NSS unit of Institute of Pharmacy

organised an online live session on

“Coping up with Mental Health and

Stress Management” under the

Government of Gujarat initiative for

students of all the universities of Gujarat

on May 24, 2020. The reason behind

conducting this activity was to emphasise

on the importance of mental health

management during the Covid-19 crisis.

The activity was carried out in two

components – Online Survey followed by

Live Therapy Session. Dr Chintan Raval

(MD Psychiatry, Associate Professor, HoD

of Psychiatry, GMERS, Patan) and Dr

Vipul Shah (MD Psychiatry, Assistant

Professor, GMERS, Patan) conducted the

session on the Instagram handle of

“nss_ipnu” attended by a total of 128

students.

National Webinar on

World Environment Day

The NSS Unit of Institute of Commerce

organised a webinar on the occasion of

World Environment Day on June 5, 2020

on the topic “Environmental Protection:

Post COVID-19: Strategy and Public

Participation” with Shri Shyam Sundar

Paliwal, Sarpanch of Piplantri village,

Rajasthan as the speaker for the session.

More than 120 participants across India

participated in this webinar.

NSS Camp at Ratanpur

A seven-day NSS special camp was organised by NSS Unit of Nirma University at

Ratanpur during Jan 4-10, 2020. Institute of Pharmacy was the host institute for the

camp. A total of 29 students from Institute of Pharmacy and Institute of Commerce,

along with faculty coordinators participated in the camp. Some of the activities

conducted during the camp included, free Eye Checkup for the residents, Awareness

campaign on “No Plastic Use”, Teaching the village students, Co-curricular activities

(Elocution, Dance, Drama, Singing, Essay Writing and Drawing Competition), Village

Survey based on Unnat Bharat Abhiyan, Traffic Awareness Campaign, and Sports

activities (Kho-Kho, Lemon & Spoon Race, Sack Race, 50m Relay, Kabaddi and Tug of

War).

Extension Activities


Blood Stem Cell Donation

Drive

ISA Student's Chapter Nirma University

organised a Blood Stem Cell Donation

Drive on Feb 29, 2020 with DATRI, a not

for profit organisation which collects and

maintains the data of the volunteers who

want to donate the blood stem cells.

Blood Donation Camp

The NSS Unit of Nirma University,

Mission SanghARSH in association with

the Gujarat Cancer and Research Institute

(GCRI) conducted a Blood Donation

Camp at Nirma University campus during

March 5-6, 2020 wherein a total of 166

units of blood was collected.

Commerce Students visit BSE, Mumbai

In order to facilitate Industry-Academia interface and with an aim to provide students

with greater exposure, the Institute of Commerce organised an Industrial visit for

students of third year BCom (Hons). A total of 39 students along with faculty

coordinators went for an educational visit to the Financial Capital of India, Mumbai

during Feb 17-18, 2020. Students acquired knowledge about stock exchanges, its

process, procedures and products traded on it through a seminar at the Bombay Stock

Exchange. The seminar enabled students to expand their knowledge on capital markets

and also enhanced their career prospects. A visit to the Reserve Bank of India Museum

was also organised. Besides this, the students also visited the Haji Ali Dargah, Juhu

Beach, Gateway of India, Colaba Causeway, the slums of Dharavi which included leather

industries, pottery, soap making, color dying, and recycling of plastic, etc.

Visit to Vautha village, Ahmedabad

A group of 82 NSS student volunteers of first year of Institute of Architecture and Planning visited Vautha village in Dholka Taluka of

Ahmedabad district on Feb 1, 2020. The trip started with a brief introduction to the village by the Sarpanch Mr Hitendrasingh Vaghela,

and the principal of the primary school Ms Bhartiben. They welcomed the students to the village and introduced them to its rich history.

They briefed about the various Faliyas of the village, major occupations, major landmarks, and all other important aspects of the village.

After this brief introduction students distributed

themselves into groups and made a preliminary

survey of the various faliyas of the village to develop

an overall understanding of the village and its people.

They also visited the Mela ground and ended the trip

at the Bhathuji temple located near the banks of the

river.


Online Webinar as a part of NSS Activity

An online Webinar for awareness on 'Prevention of Child Sexual Offences Act' (POCSOA

2012) was arranged by Sakshi (regd. NGO 1992) for NSS volunteers of Institute of

Architecture and Planning on April 25, 2020. The Ministry of Youth Affairs, has agreed for

Sakshi to deliver capacity building workshops in partnership with Directorate of NSS with

the NSS volunteers to strengthen Youth as powerful enablers for creating a

Constitutional Rights Based Enabled Environment in the context of Gender Equality with

a focus on building awareness about POCSOA 2012.

Smita Bharti (Executive Director), Swarnim Sen (Lead Trainer of the workshop), Kanika

Lakhera (Assistant Trainer) and Alia Khan (Assistant Trainer) from Sakshi organised and

conducted the workshop. 68 student volunteers and 3 faculty members from Institute of

Architecture and Planning participated in the webinar on Google Meet platform. An

Informative presentation, well made videos and an interactive question answer session

at the end of the session, were highlights of this webinar.

Student Initiatives

• Dirgav Patel, NSS volunteer and

BPharm Semester IV student at

Institute of Pharmacy distributed

900+ sanitizers and 270+ food kits to

the needy people in various COVID-

19 affected areas of Ahmedabad for

consecutive eight days. Dirgav

helped the people residing in and

around Vejalpur, Sarkhej,

Maktampura, and Jodhpur ward in

Ahmedabad. For his commendable

service to society, Dirgav received a

call from MLA Mr Kishorbhai

Chauhan, appreciating his efforts and

was awarded a letter of appreciation

by the MLA himself.


Student Initiatives

• Samay Chevli, a final year student of

Institute of Architecture and

Planning, is involved in social work

during the Corona pandemic. He and

his father, who is an Architect, as a

team designed face masks for an

NGO called ‘Prayas’. Also to sanitize

the hands of passengers, the base

design considering the anthropology

of the human is prepared, which is

going to be installed first at Surat

airport which can be used once the

airport service starts. They also

distributed the masks to the people

living at nearby communities.

World Environment Day Celebration

The Civil Engineering Department celebrated 'World Environment Day' on June 5, 2020

with the NSS Unit-School of Engineering (SoE) and Student Association of Civil

Engineering Department-OrCES through online mode. Activities like poster making and

video competitions were planned to spread awareness and show student's contribution

towards saving the environment. Students participated in these activities from their

home. The theme of the poster and video was “Impact of COVID-19 on Environment”.


Crisis is a difficult time to predict and good time to change. Post COVID era is going to

be transformed in many walks of national and social life. All sectors have witnessed

unprecedented changes including the higher education in the time of Coronavirus. Most

of the higher education institutions have been able to turn the challenges posed in

corona times into opportunities embracing disruptive academic innovation.

This is truly VUCA 2.0 world. Vibrant, Unreal, Crazy and Astounding. We are observing

rapidly evolving new paradigms of individual and social life. We live in this

Anthropocene world, geological era-where each one of us individually and collectively

shaping the world around us with our actions. This is an age of disruption where ideas

are new currency and ROI is no more return on investment but return on involvement.

Higher education institutions at this juncture dealing with generation Z, no more dealing

with millennials and so required rebooting of the approach. This generation Z is self-

reliant, have desire to create their own solution, they seem to be quite aware about

themselves and the world around them and they have high expectation of respect and

coexistence irrespective of their age. This generation Z has new age expectation of

learning. That includes personalised learning paths, flexible curriculum, flexible timings,

autonomy of learning and more importantly restriction free learning. Most of the higher

education institutions in India were not able to respond to the needs of this new age

learners due to regulatory restrictions. Minimum requirement of attendance, minimum

number of courses, credits, passing standard, minimum number of days of teaching,

faculty recruitment criteria, etc has left with less freedom for most of the Universities to

cater to the needs of this generation Z. However Corona poses challenges of physical

presence and imposing social distancing and other norms, willy-nilly pushed universities

to go for virtual teaching sessions. That also gave freedom to universities to take

services of industry experts and professionals from the fields to impart online training.

This initiative gives room for students to experience their learning autonomy to a great

extent. Most of the generation Z learners are welcoming these changes and that raises

the expectation from regulatory bodies to change the approach and standards to

accommodate this new expectation. This is an apt time for regulatory bodies to capture

these reflections from stakeholders and gear up for new model of quality standards with

definite outcomes.

This is the time that reminds us to revisit the report of UNESCO’s International stCommission on Education for the 21 century. This thought provoking report titled

“Learning the treasure within” highlights four pillars of learning- Learning to know,

Learning to do, Learning to live together and Learning to be. It is high time the

regulatory bodies of higher education in India imbibe the four pillars of learning as stultimate objectives ascertaining and nurturing 21 century skill sets.

In Focus

Changing Paradigms of Indian Higher Education

in the time of Coronavirus

Prof Purvi Pokhariyal

Director, Institute of Law, Nirma University


Faculty

Awards and Achievements

• Dr Manjunath Ghate, Director, Institute of Pharmacy received the “ISCB Best Teacher

Award 2020” in the area of drug research during a joint international conference of th th26 Indian Society for Chemists and Biologists (ISCB) and 5 Nirma Institute of

Pharmacy International Conference (NIPiCON) held at Nirma University, Ahmedabad

on Jan 22, 2020.

• Dr Niyati Acharya, Assistant Professor & Head, Department of Pharmacognosy,

Institute of Pharmacy has been awarded the SFE Young Ethnopharmacologist Award

2020, P K Debnath Memorial Award for Best Oral Presentation in the field of thEthnopharmacology and medicinal plant research at 7 International Congress of

Society for Ethnopharmacology SFEC 2020, during Feb 15-17, 2020 organised by

Society for Ethnopharmacology (SFE) and Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi respectively.

• Dr Sriram Seshadri from Institute of

Science has been recognised as one

of the Top 50 coordinators of IQAC

across India by The Academic

Council of uLektz on Jan 31, 2020.


Achievements

• Mr Dweep Sabapara, alumni of

Mechanical Engineering Department,

Institute of Technology secured All

India Rank-9 (Top in Gujarat State) in

the Indian Engineering Service, 2019

Examination (in Mechanical

Engineering) conducted by UPSC.

• Mr Bhavin Dabhi, alumni of BE

(Mechanical Engineering, batch of

2000), Institute of Technology, owner

of Universal Designovation Lab

LLP(UDLAB) has designed and

developed a fully automatic Walk

Through Mass Disinfector machine.

The machine is installed at Sardar

Vallabhbhai Patel (SVP) Hospital-

Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad Municipal

Corporation, Rajkot Collector Office,

Rajkot Municipal Commissioner

Office, Rajkot Police Commissioner

Office, etc. He has also installed one

such machine at Nirma University

campus in the month of May 2020.

Activities

Alumni-Faculty Online Meet

Civil Engineering Department, SoE, Institute of Technology organised an online alumni

meet on May 24, 2020 for Alumnus working in government and semi government sector.

18 alumni and 10 faculty members were present during the online meet. They shared

their experience about their job responsibilities and also discussed about strengthening

the alumni forum. The alumni who were a part of the meet include, Grishma Rathva,

Deputy Collector (Govt of Gujarat); Rashika Kapil, Executive Engineer (R&B Department);

Rahul Upadhay, and Bhavesh Pethani, Executive Engineer (Kalpsar Department); Harsh

Bhadja, Assistant Engineer (Kalpsar Department); Mehul Darji, Deputy Executive Engineer

(Kalpsar Department); Deep Shah, Mihir Chauhan, and Ankit Chaudhary, Deputy

Executive Engineer (R&B department); Dhrudip Patel, Assistant Engineer (Kalpsar

Department); Archan Patel, Assistant Engineer (Irrigation Department); Hitesh Limbasiya,

Executive Project Engineer (Sabarmati Gas Limited); Deepesh Taraiya, Assistant Engineer

(Rajkot Municipal Corporation); Dhruv Prajapati, Assistant Engineer (Sardar Sarovar

Nigam Ltd); Karan Metra, and Sachin Patel, Assistant Engineer (R&B Department); Ronak

Prajapati, Assistant Engineer (Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation); and Chaitanya Vadher,

Assistant Engineer (R&B Department).

Alumni-Student Interaction Webinar Series

Institute of Law organised Alumni-Student Interaction Webinar Series during May 12-27,

2020. The aim of the webinar series is to foster interaction and set up connections

between alumni and students. The alumni provided career guidance to the students in

the field of litigation, in-house counsel, judiciary, academics, law firms, international

studies and non-legal fields. The speakers for the various sessions were as follows:

• ‘Pursuing career as a litigator’- Mr Sandeep Bansiwal, Founder Advocate at Sandeep

Bansiwal & Associates; Ms Veenu Nanavati, Advocate Gujarat High Court; Mr Jaimin

Dave, Advocate, Gujarat High Court; Mr Tirth Nayak, Advocate, Gujarat High Court;

and Ms Gunjan Jadwani, Advocate, Allahabad High Court.

• ‘Pursuing career as in-house counsel’- Mr Apurv Shah, Legal Manager at L&T

Infrastructure Development Projects; Ms Shriya Jain, Manager- Legal Strategy, CMD’s

Alumni


Career Guidance Sessions

by Alumni of Institute of

Pharmacy

The following sessions were conducted

by alumni of Institute of Pharmacy for

the current students:

• Mr Rahil Jani, Registered Pharmacist,

Canada, delivered a talk on “Scope of

Pharmacy in Canada” on May 3,

2020.

• Ms Radhika Patel, Quality Head,

Westcost Pharma, Ahmedabad,

delivered a talk on “Management as

a career option after BPharm” on

May 4, 2020.

• Mr Hitesh Katariya, President, and

Founder of PharmaGupshup

Academy and Gujarat Forum of

Pharmacy Student (GFPS),

Ahmedabad delivered a talk on

“Preparing for GPAT Exam 2021” on

May 5, 2020.

• Mr Anand Odedra, Director of

Business Development, DOCPLEXUS,

Mumbai, delivered a talk on “MBA as

a career option after BPharm” on

May 6, 2020.

• Ms Panvi Patel and Mr Anmol Patwa,

Acme Pharmaceuticals, Ahmedabad

delivered a talk on “Getting into

Pharma Business after BPharm” on

May 9, 2020.

Office, Ozone Group; Mr Varun Israni, Associate Manager with Adani Ports and SEZ

Ltd; Mr Archan Shah, Legal Counsel at Standard Chartered Bank; and Ms Pathmaja

Raghunathan, Legal Manager at HDFC Bank Ltd.

• ‘Pursuing career as a judicial officer’- Ms Isha Sanghi, Special Metropolitan

Magistrate, Jodhpur Metropolitan, Rajasthan; Mr Divyakant Singh Rathore, Civil

Judge and Judicial Magistrate, Uttar Pradesh; Ms Chitrakshi Singh, Additional Civil

Judge and Metropolitan Magistrate, Jaipur, Rajasthan; Mr Devansh Agrawal, Civil

Judge and Judicial Magistrate, Dewas, Madhya Pradesh; and Ms Ridhima Johari, Civil

Judge and Judicial Magistrate First Class, Anand, Gujarat.

• ‘Pursuing career as an IP Lawyer’- Ms Saumya Gupta, Associate Khaitan and

Company; Mr Amay Jain, Associate Sujata Chaudhri and IP Attorneys; Mr Prajoy

Dutta, Associate, Anand & Anand & Khimani; Ms Namrata Dubey, Associate,

Saikrishna Associates; and Mr Harshit Singh Jadoun, Associate, Fidus law Chambers.

• ‘Pursuing career as an Associate/Senior Associate/Partner in a law firm’- Mr

Siddharth Sinha, Senior Associate, J Sagar Associates; Mr Kunal Vyas, Associate

Partner, Nanavati Associates; Mr Rushab Dhandokia, Associate L & L Partners; Mr

Renjith Nair, Senior Associate, Acuity Law; and Ms Arzoo Virmani, Associate, Cyril

Amarchand Mangaldas.

• ‘Pursuing a career abroad- Insights and experiences’- Ms Shreemoyee Bhaduri,

Associate, Ross Law Group, PLLC New York, United States; Ms Priyantika Sinha Roy

Ghosh, Legal Ops, EU Amazon, Luxembourg; Mr Bayar Goswami, Doctoral Fellow in

Space Governance, McGill University; Ms Vanya Rakesh, Data Privacy Lawyer, Leiden,

South Holland, Netherlands; Ms Krishna Parekh, Associate Attorney, Mark E

Seitelman Law Offices, United States.

• ‘Pursuing a career in academics’- Ms Palak Jagtiani, Adjunct Faculty, Amity University,

Dubai; Ms Astha Anup Chaturvedi, Assistant Professor, School of Law, Galgotias

University; Mr Pradyumna Anil Purohit, Academic Consultant, Mahatama Gandhi

Centre for Peace Studies, O P Jindal Global University; Mr Umang Ghidyal, Assistant

Professor, KIIT University; and Ms Jharna Sahijwani, Assistant Professor, Kirit P Mehta

School of Law, NMIMS University, Mumbai.

• ‘Pursuing unconventional career paths’- Mr Mohak Sharma, Head Coach Multifit,

Jaipur; Ms Sanjivani Sigh, Co-founder Operations, Spinning Wheel Organisations; Ms

Preet Mehta, Co-founder, Chief Digital Media Marketing Manager, Yellow Brick

Design; Mr Tanay Tiwari, Anchor and Video Producer, Cricbuzz; and Mr Shiv Patel,

Owner, Mocha Ahmedabad.


Alumni on Campus

• Dr Prashant Kumar Jena, doctoral student, class of 2014, Institute of Science,

currently working as a Project Scientist in Innate and Host Pathogen Interaction

Laboratory, Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre, Los Angeles, USA delivered a talk on

“Dysregulated Bile acid synthesis derived gut dysbiosis” on Jan 23, 2020 at Institute

of Science.

• Dr Dhara Patel Lakhkar (MSc, class of 2006, Institute of Science), currently working as

a Domain Expert, Science Communication and Public Engagement, MANAV at IISER,

Pune conducted a training and awareness session regarding MANAV, a human

ATLAS initiative of Department of Biotechnology, Government of India on Jan 22,

2020. She also gave a talk on “How to read research articles”.

Owing to the ongoing pandemic, the alumni of Nirma University conducted the

following webinars online:

• Mechanical Engineering Students Association (MESA) organised an online expert talk

on “How to crack a competitive exam?” on June 27, 2020 by Mr Gaurav Joshi, (BTech

in Mechanical Engineering, 2014), IRSME officer, Indian Railways. He has cleared

various competitive exams like UPSC Engineering Service Examination with All India

Rank (AIR) 5, GATE AIR 47, BARC 99.77 percentile, ISRO, ONGC, IISc, among others.

• Mr Saurabh Vyas, Deputy Manager, International Business Development and RA

Operations (Emerging Market), Zydus Cadila, and an alumni of Institute of Pharmacy

conducted a webinar on ‘Regulatory Aspects of International Business’ for MPharm

(Pharmaceutical Analysis and RA) and PhD students on June 19, 2020.

• Dr Nitesh Shah, Director, Technical and Business development, Evonik, and an alumni

of Institute of Pharmacy conducted a webinar on ‘Biodegradable polymers-

Microparticles and medical device applications’ for BPharm, MPharm and PhD

students on June 24, 2020.

• Dr Harsh S Shah, Senior Scientist, Preformulation, J-Star Research, New Jersey, USA,

and an alumni of Institute of Pharmacy conducted a webinar on ‘New insights on

solid state studies in formulation stability: A case study’ for BPharm, MPharm and

PhD students on June 27, 2020.

Industrial Instrumentation and Automation Webinar

Series

As part of the webinar series “Industrial Instrumentation and Automation” conducted by

the alumni of Institute of Technology the following sessions were held in June 2020:

• 5G Technology for Industrial Instrumentation by Rahul Kaushik (2006-2010 Batch),

Lead Engineer at Qualcomm, USA on June 22, 2020.

• Deep Learning in 2020 by Harsh Munshi (2009-2013 Batch), R & D Engineer,

Graymatics, Singapore, June 23, 2020.

• Role of I & C Engineers in the Field of Process Safety by Murtaza Gandhi (1998-2002

Batch), Senior Engineer and Scholarship Chair at Baker Risk, USA and ISA, PMCD

Division on June 25, 2020.

Placement Mantra by

Senior Friends

As part of the webinar series “Placement

Mantra by Senior Friends” organised by

the Department of Electronics &

Communication Engineering, Institute of

Technology the following sessions were

held for the students of BTech Semester

V and VII:

• Mr Rakshit Goyal from ARM,

Bangalore and Mr Pranjal Shrivastava

from Cypress, Bangalore interacted

with the students on the topic

“Placement Process” on June 14,

2020.

• Mr Rakshit Goyal from ARM,

Bangalore, Mr Pranjal Shrivastava,

and Mr Jaivik Desai from Cypress,

Bangalore conducted a session on

“Programming Languages” on June

20, 2020.

• Mr Rakshit Goyal and Mr Prakhar

Suneja from ARM, Bangalore; Mr

Pranjal Shrivastava from Cypress,

Bangalore; Ms Vinita Ramnani from

Xilinx, Delhi; Ms Jaya Thadani from

Xilinx, Hyderabad; and Ms Vidhi Shah

from einfochips, Ahmedabad

conducted a session on “VLSI

Design” on June 21, 2020.


Alumni Meets

• The annual alumni meet of IPNUAA (Institute of Pharmacy Nirma University Alumni Association) held on Jan 26, 2020 was attended

by more than 95 alumni members. Prof Manjunath Ghate, Director, Institute of Pharmacy and President, IPNUAA welcomed the

alumni members and shared the new initiatives at the institute. Dr Dhaivat C Parikh, Vice President, IPNUAA shared updates on

Alumni Association activities at Institute level, as well as encouraged alumni members for active participation and to enhance the

alumni networking. Alumni members in turn shared their experiences and revived their college days. Entertaining One-Minute

Games and Photo booths were arranged as a part of interaction during tea time.

• Institute of Science held its annual alumni meet on Feb 29, 2020. Prof Dalai, Director, Institute of Science addressed the alumni and

updated them regarding the progress of the institute. An interactive session for faculty, current students and alumni was also

arranged followed by a cultural programme. The General Body Meeting of the alumni association was held to discuss scope of

strengthening the alumni activities at the institute.


• An online alumni interaction for

alumni of Civil Engineering

Department, Nirma University who

are working/studying abroad was

held on June 21, 2020. Around 25

alumni members participated in the

meet. The alumni members shared

the experiences of their higher

studies, and work environment and

culture abroad. They also provided

feedback on the improvements that

can be made in the curriculum of

BTech, Civil Engineering.

• As part of the institute's Silver Jubilee Celebrations, the Nirma Institute of Technology

Alumni Association (NITAA) organised an annual get-together and a general

meeting of its alumni on Jan 4, 2020. Over 1500 alumni and their family members,

faculty, staff and the students were present at the event. Engaging games and

cultural activities were enjoyed by all. There was also a cricket match between the

Alumni team and the Faculty team where the Nirma University faculty team emerged

as the winners.


Editorial Board

For Private Circulation Only

For further details please visit our website: www.nirmauni.ac.in

For correspondence email to: [email protected]

Edited by: Ms Ritu Agarwal, Publication Officer, Nirma University

Published by: Nirma University, Ahmedabad

Printed by: M/s Print Quick, Ahmedabad

Nirma University

Sarkhej-Gandhinagar Highway

Ahmedabad 382 481

Gujarat, India

Tel: +91-2717-241900-04, +91-2717-241911-15, +91-79-71652000

Dr R N Patel Chairman, Institute of Technology, Nirma University

Ms Ritu Agarwal Editor, Member Secretary, Nirma University

Dr Richa Mishra Member, Institute of Technology, Nirma University

Dr Monali Chatterjee Member, Institute of Management, Nirma University

Dr Shital Butani Member, Institute of Pharmacy, Nirma University

Dr Sonal Bakshi Member, Institute of Science, Nirma University

Dr Shreya Srivastava Member, Institute of Law, Nirma University

Dr Prachi Patel Member, Institute of Architecture & Planning, Nirma University

Dr Sumita Shroff Member, Institute of Commerce, Nirma University

Dr Tanaya Vyas Member, Department of Design, Nirma University

34 nirma newsletter jan-june 2020 - nirmauni.ac.in

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